Jinxed
by Candra de Innocentia
Summary: Jinx is a demon. Nuada bought a load of tooth faeries offa her, and now that old lower demon curiosity is kicking in. Looks like the once-prince just got himself stuck with a sidekick in his quest to awaken the Golden Army... movieverse. No OCxNuada
1. Twelve Bits

**I don't own any characters in this WHOLE thing except for Jinx. Jinx is mine. The others are not. Moving on now…**

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_"Whether you think the price is decent or not, _ma'am_,"_ I sneered in Elvish, _"you still have to pay for them."_

_"Outrageous!"_ The fat-bellied twig-limbed amphibian blubbered, her massive sickly-yellow eyes boggling out of her slimy head. _"Twelve bits for a half-dozen tooth faeries! I need their guts to curdle my pond stew, now take the seven bits and hand them over, you black-hearted, pale-skinned demon! You're crazy if you think I'll pay a dozen bits!"_

I narrowed my amber eyes at her, gritted my teeth and tried to keep my temper. If there was anything I hated more than not being able to eat the amphibians that frequented my stall in the heart of the hustling-bustling Troll Market, it was serving the ones with attitude problems. And nearly _all_ amphibians have attitude problems.

_"Ma'am,"_ I ground out, _"Twelve bits is the price to pay for a full cage of my faeries. It's a lucky number, and it hasn't failed me yet. I can get you a half-cage for eight bits, but that's as low as I can go. For six faeries, however, the price remains. Twelve. Bits."_

The delectable, hideous creature's throat sac swelled indignantly, drooping low over the moldy tunic that barely covered her bulging midsection. She spat a glob of sticky ooze onto my workspace and snorted with a curled lip, _"Well it's failing you now. Twelve bits—Ha! What a load. I'll just take my perfectly _reasonable_ seven bits elsewhere."_

_"What a relief. And here I was thinking I was going to have to stand here arguing with you, staring at your ugly excuse for a face for who knows how long! I'll have to pick up something later to sweeten my sleep to keep the sight of _that_ out of my nightmares!"_ It's a policy of mine to stay more polite than my clientele only for as long as it takes to make a sale, but if the customer decides to take their business someplace else, the policy expires. Simple as that.

It seemed the amphibian's throat sac was going to pop, the way she was blowing it up; but finally she just spat again, deflated herself with a long, scornful croak, and stomped off with her big flat feet. For several moments I seriously considered going after her and having my dinner early, but before I could another customer appeared before me. I very nearly couldn't believe who it was, but it was unmistakable. His facial features positively _reeked_ of nobility, and his ivory skin, pale hair, and golden eyes marked him an elf of the highest breed. Dressed in menacing black leather from neck to toe, a violent red sash about his waist tied together the ominous ensemble. The fact that the two dark crates he hefted, one in each hand, each bore the blisteringly bright Silverlance seal of war helped the effect on nicely.

He blinked at me, his coal-dusted eyelids flashing down but once, before setting down his crates with two impressive thuds and giving me a brief—very brief—smile.

"P-Prince Nuada!" I spluttered, accidentally slipping into the human tongue in my surprise. The long-exiled prince didn't seem to mind.

"_How much would it be to fill these two crates?"_ He asked in Elvish, his visage polite as he gestured at them with a hand as pale as the full moon.

I could feel the tips of my ears becoming nearly as red as my choppy head of tousled fox-red hair, but I refused to be cowed. Such is the nature of a demon like me. So I met his question with my usual introduction.

"_Jinks is the name, business is my game. As for those two crates, it depends on if they're poly-dimensioned. Are they as big as they seem?"_

He nodded slightly and looked me straight in the eye as he answered, _"These crates are duo-dimensioned. Twice as large. How much is it to fill them both?"_

I pretended to look as if the answer eluded me for a moment as an excuse to break eye contact with the elf. It was unsettling, to lock gazes with a once-prince. Eventually I turned back to him, careful to keep my eyes away from his own, and gave him his answer. Not about to miss a beat, he untied a small pack from his hip and tossed it onto my table, uncomfortably close to the bubbling glob of amphibian spit still sitting there.

I swiftly grabbed the purse and judged it to be at least four-dimensioned, and nearly every inch of it was filled with pieces, which are worth a number more than bits. I could tell it was exactly the amount I had named, but I wasn't about to ask how the once-prince knew my prices, so I held up a finger, indicating I needed a moment.

"_I'll have your order out in a minute, uh…"_ I wasn't sure whether or not to call him by his title, seeing as he was supposed to be in exile and all, so I just trailed off and turned around to pull the rough black clock off the massive cage behind me.

At once a screeching, chattering cacophony added to the usual Troll Market din as my assortment of tooth faeries were startled by the sudden light and sound. It was a silencing cloth I'd thrown over them, to keep them calm. Their little periwinkle bodies crashed against one another as they wildly careened about, their ragged wings beating the air as they swirled as if thrown by a torrent.

"_Just a moment,"_ I told the once-prince politely again—and then I threw open the cage door. With a flick of my first two fingers the dark crates opened wide their maws to take in the streams of little blue creatures I was directing toward them with my other hand. They were unable to fight my telekinetic ability, and soon—to my surprise—the cage was empty and the one-prince's crates were crammed full, rattling slightly only now and then.

"_That's an interesting skill you have,"_ he said softly before taking up his crates, one in each hand, again and making to turn away.

"_Pardon me," _I said with a politeness that usually only graced my most likeable customers, _"but if you don't mind my asking, what is it you need so many tooth faeries for? Some kind of infestation you need them to eat off or something?"_

He kept his back to me, and for a minute I thought he wasn't going to answer, but finally he half-looked over his leather-clad shoulder and replied, _"It's in return for something I am going to take back. Something that should've never been given in the first place."_

That sounded just a little too…ominous, for my liking, but I nodded as if I understood completely and watched as he, his dark crates, and his red sash disappeared into the crowd. I looked suddenly to my right to find a misshapen host staring at me with wide eyes, holding to his chest what looked like the beginnings of an infant tumor.

"What?" I asked innocently enough in the human tongue, grabbing the coin purse and stuffing it into the pocket of my human-made suit jacket.

He shook his oddly-shaped head, grimacing in a way that revealed his rotting remnants of teeth beneath lips that looked like dried caterpillars, and told me in a hoarse, nasally voice, "You chouldn't do vhat I know choo are going to do anyvay, Chinx. Just let it be!"

I shrugged carelessly and wiped my hands free of non-existent filth on my white, human-made, long-sleeved shirt before saying, "I don't have a clue what you're talking about—seriously. Your tongue must be swelling again, because I didn't understand a word you just said. Better get that checked."

The host clapped a wrinkled green-black hand over his mouth, being careful to support the tumor at his chest, which was still staring at me with adorable brown eyes, and hobbled off into the never-still throng of Troll Market consumers.

"Don't have a clue what you're talking about," I mumbled again to myself as I picked up the silencing cloth from the ground where it'd fallen and shrunk to the size of a placemat. I tucked the black material into the same pocket as my fresh cash, to silence the pieces jingling merrily against one another, and then hastily hung a Closed sign on the empty cage. The masses would just have to get their faeries somewhere else today, because curiosity was calling my name once again.

_Find out what the once-prince is up to!_ It demanded of me, taking the leg of my human-made jeans and forcing me to take a step in the direction of the vanished elf. My bare toes gripped the filthy floor as if to protest another step, but I decided to give curiosity a chance to satisfy itself and moved on ahead.

_I hope I know what I'm doing,_ I thought futilely as I pushed and shoved a path for myself through the press of bodies. Already I could feel the adrenaline saturating my veins, keeping me sharper than a never-dulling knife.

_Jinx is my name, mischief's my game, and I never know what I'm doing until I'm doing it. _

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A/N

Ah, I love the smell of fanfiction in the morning! Except, well…it's night and I can't smell the internet, but anyway…

I decided to do the poly-dimensional thing because there's no WAY the number of faeries that attacked HB and the crew fit into two little crates. Unless tooth faeries breed super fast or something.

I'm gonna try EXTRA SUPER hard not to mary-sue this character, Jinx, but this's all gonna run through the movie and stuff. That's right, I have a good deal of time on my hands.

If there's anything you need to tell me, concerning grammar, spelling, technicalities, plot, or whatever, PLEASE tell me!!

Jinx, I don't know if I said this in the text, is a female. You'll get more on her physical appearance later. Gawd, I hate mary-sues. Please tell me if I'm MS'ing my character, and I'll correct it in whatever way you tell me to.

Notice the host there with the baby tumor? Yeah, it's adorable, isn't it….The tumor's not fully formed in this scene, just fyi. Jinx owns a lot of human-made clothing…

Review? Please?


	2. Mister Wink

As it turns out, a once-prince is not an easy thing to find. When I lost his scent in the stench of the crowd and the wares they were clamoring for, I was reduced to asking around. An exiled prince carting two faerie-filled crates marked with the royal warring emblem shouldn't be a hard thing to find, right? _Someone_ had to have seen him—or so I thought.

Every shopper I questioned shook his or her head, some looking frightened as they did so, before walking away as swiftly as their weight-carrying appendages could take them. The sellers, when I found myself suddenly crushed against a stall by the crowd, merely waved the question away and shoved their merchandise into my face, inquiring as to whether or not I'd seen anything finer.

Anyway, at one point in my search I found myself smack-dab in the middle of the path of a raving hoard of vanities—that is, tall, elegant creatures that must deck themselves out in the most beautiful things, lest they wither and die—as they barreled through the Market, all of them racing toward a just-opened stall selling fine (and most probably stolen) silks and such for clothing. I found myself, along with so many others, unable to move out of their way fast enough to avoid a collision, and what should I find myself being pummeled into but the broad bicep of the famous Mister Wink!

It was just as a vanity's elbow ever-so-gracefully jabbed me in the ribs that I had my epiphany. Wink was a good troll, right? Well, good as it gets among trolls, anyway. Judging by the fact that he was a good head taller than anyone in the crowd, I figured if there was anyone who'd seen Nuada and his war-crates, it was him, and he wouldn't be one to lie about it.

I managed to peel my face away from the football-sized bulge of pure muscle that was Wink's arm long enough to crane my neck up and catch a glimpse of his fierce profile before the vanity equivalent of a catfight broke out beside me, knocking me to the floor. The floor of the overflowing-full Troll Market is in no way a safe or sanitary place to be. This was proved when a massive cloven hoof stomped down hardly an inch away from my hand (which was resting on something that looked disgustingly like the remains of a squashed tooth faerie), followed by a thunderous roar that for a moment silenced the whole Market.

I could feel all sorts of filth seeping into my jacket, and I knew I was either going to have to wash it or burn it sometime very soon.

Speaking of my jacket, I suddenly felt a powerful tug on the back of the black garment and all at once I was lifted into the air. I was raised by an impressively crafted mechanical hand to Wink's eye-level, and for the first time ever I got a good look at the famed blacksmith.

His flesh was the color of grey slate, and his powerful arms, immense bare chest, and hunched shoulders were all devoid of any hair whatsoever—his back had a number of spines still bristling from the remnants of his anger, though. His rather prominent brow preceded a pair of small, glistening yellow eyes, followed by a squished-looking nose and a long expanse of bare face before ending with bluish lips and a short but thick beard that traveled from his jaw to his temples. Poking out from that beard were two tusks on either side of his chin, one of which was broken and had a jagged end.

_"Hello,"_ was the first thing I said, for lack of anything else to say. Wink blinked at me and sniffed before opening his mouth and growling a greeting in troll's tongue, which is just a little different than Elvish. _"Be careful,"_ he told me, _"little demon."_

He set me down carefully very close to him so that for the most part his bulk sheltered me from the current of packed-in bodies. I had to look almost straight up to see his face again as I asked quickly asked him before he got a chance to move on, _"Thank you for saving me, good Mister Wink. I…have a question for you, if that is alright."_

Wink used his mechanical right hand to effortlessly brush away the pair of quarreling vanities before dipping his head. _"What is it, little demon?"_

_"Have you…seen Prince Nuada? I saw him in the Market and I've been looking for him. Have you seen him, good Mister Wink?"_

The troll looked down at me, his eyes wide with surprise. Finally, blinking rapidly, he shook his large head and growled in troll's tongue, _"Not seen Nuada. Why do you seek him, the exiled prince, little demon?"_

I shrugged at him, forcing my face to look as innocent as demonically possible. _"No reason, good Mister Wink. I thought I saw him and was only curious as to why he was visiting the Market. But if you say you did not see him, surely it couldn't have been him, for with your height you must see everything. Thank you, good Mister Wink!" _I said cheerily.

_"You are welcome, little demon." _He sounded sincere, but his face looked troubled as he turned and waded through the mass of shoppers.

_See what he's up to!_ Curiosity told me this time. _He knows where Nuada is, doesn't he? Follow him!_

"Right-o, then," I mumbled only to myself before setting out again after the hastily retreating back-spines of Mister Wink.

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A/N

Not much to say here. I made up the vanities, so there.

I want a Mister Wink as a pet. I will feed him and he will live in my closet.

And then I want a Nuada for my birthday. And a Hellboy for Christmas!

Review please!!


	3. Training Session

Mister Wink unwittingly led me out of the Troll Market and into the Manhattan sewer system. It was a disgusting place, truly, but at least it'd been out of commission long enough that there wasn't any lingering waste still clinging to the concrete tunnel walls.

As the troll walked on, I used yet another one of my helpful demonic abilities to cling to the ceiling of the winding tunnel to avoid being seen on those rare occasions Wink glanced back over his shoulder. I don't even know how long I followed him for before, finally, he stopped just before the entrance of a larger chamber. I could smell something like train, and realized that somehow we must've gotten into the subway system from the sewer.

I peered out of the darkness of the tunnel we'd come from and gazed about at the chamber beyond. My eyes widened as I saw the fiery mouth of the forge and the assortment of blacksmith's tools hanging in neat rows from the walls. This was Wink's _den!_ I'd followed him _home!?_

I was just about to sigh disappointedly when none other than the once-prince Nuada himself entered from another tunnel across the chamber and removed his leather tunic and red sash. I winced to see the few but ugly scars that marred his otherwise flawless pale skin, but soon enough I was entranced by his muscular physique. The rain draining down into the middle of the chamber from a faint hole of light up above dripped down to trace damp lines over his strong arms and prominent abs. His white hair, barely becoming blond at the tips, was sleek and straight as it fell beyond his shoulders to splay across the rippling muscles of his back.

And then he pulled out that spear.

I recognized it as a retractable model, but never before had I seen one so sleek. The blade flashed sliver in the semi-darkness, humming as it sliced the air with its every faintest movement, and the black handle was shaped perfectly to the once-prince's hand.

Stepping out beneath the beam of dying light, he rested the spear over his shoulder, his back to both Wink and myself. The troll seemed content to wait until his houseguest had finished with his practice—though personally I think that's not quite the word for it.

A…a savage dance of some kind, that's what it was.

It started with a basic one-handed rotating of his perfect weapon, but soon enough the blade was singing through the air, twirling above his head with impossible swiftness. The once-prince sent his spearhead up through the bottom of an invisible opponent's skull, then twirled out of the way to avoid a blow from the dying thing. He landed, spun, stabbed, and then paused as he allowed his enemies to possibly regroup, or perhaps just to stare at him with a mixture of fear and awe.

The pause lasted barely a moment, though, before he sliced his way through their ranks, leapt over the fallen and rebounded off of a wall, shoving the spear into the gut of some creature that'd strayed too close. He landed on both feet and flipped into the air, over the weapons of his opponents, closing in, and then rolled, ducking beneath them as they met only air.

Nuada landed on one knee, the handle of his retracted spear hitting the floor with an impressive sound that made me start. The opponents closed in, thinking the once-prince tired after slaying so many of their number, but they were wrong. With the faint sound of stone grating on stone, the spear elongated upward to its full height, cutting the light into shards with its brilliant blade.

As soon as the weapon was finished growing, Nuada swept it about himself, first beheading and then cutting out the knees of the ring of invisible beasts around him. He leapt far into the air and brought the head of the spear down, hard, into a stagnant puddle of water, sending diamond drops toward the ceiling.

Several droplets struck my face, smelling of both earth and pollution.

The spear was swung over and around, twice, cutting through the sheet of falling water, the blade singing as it slices rows of droplets in two.

I strained forward, barely keeping my face out of the scarce light generated by the forge, curious as to what the once-prince would do next.

But, it seemed, the once-prince was finished for the moment. He held the spear level in his two pale hands, his hard stomach rippling with his heavy breath.

I gasped as a train suddenly passed by, the lit windows flashing by in a dizzying display. I could feel the tunnel shaking beneath my hands and bare feet, and was glad that the noise of the monstrous thing covered the sound of my surprise.

Nuada quickly flipped the spear behind his back, holding it with the back of his hand facing forward as he turned his back on the train roaring by beyond the shattered stone wall of the chamber. Padding forward a few steps, he kept his eyes on the settling water at his feet as he asked in the human tongue, "How long have you been there, my friend?"

For an agonizing minute I thought he was speaking to _me_, but then I remembered the cave troll standing just beneath me, and indeed, Mister Wink stumped into the chamber a few feet and answered in his own language, _"Long enough, friend. What about the faeries?"_

I pursed my lips and narrowed my eyes, excitement building within me. So Mister Wink _was_ a part of whatever the once-prince was up to!

Nuada finally turned to face Wink, and I ducked further into the tunnel, not wanting to risk being seen. He suspended his spear at throat height by a single hand, and smiled slightly as it retracted smoothly, reducing itself to its original size once again. He spun it swiftly before pointing with it to the two dark crates he'd brought to me earlier, still rattling slightly. Just the sight of those seals had dread worrying my excitement like needle teeth.

"They're over there," he answered, coal-dusted lips still upturned. "I bought them today. I haven't fed them—at all."

Now the faintest bit of anger pooled in my gut. My merchandise was of the highest quality, and now here the once-prince was trying to starve it all to death! I nearly hoped he'd get himself bitten when he decided to open those two crates, but I knew he would not. Tooth faeries may be ravenous little pests, but they did possess a certain amount of intelligence that allowed them to distinguish between prince and prey.

Speaking of the once-prince, he stepped below the faint ring of light in the center of the chamber, his long wet hair falling back away from the bare scars on his face and the swirling glyphs at his temples as he looked upward. The look in his eyes was almost a glare—hard and clever—as he gazed at the light.

"I will go up first," he told Wink. "You will follow." He looked away from the hole into the human world just long enough to add, "And remember, Mister Wink: Don't be shy."

Had I not been hanging upside-down my jaw would've dropped open. Nuada and Wink were going upstairs!? With two crates full of starving tooth faeries!? Something told me they weren't planning on engaging in a bit of friendly trade with the humans up top. Something bad was going to happen.

_"The sight of me will turn their guts to mush!" _Wink was snarling. _"I'll rip them to pieces if they dare stop us, and soon we shall restore the kingdom of Bethmora to its previous glory! Those disgusting little parasites up above will stand no chance! None!"_

His voice shook the cavern with its might, echoing all about in a way that hurt my sensitive ears. The troll's back-spikes were bristling as he heaved with violent breath, both his mechanical fist and his flesh one clenching and unclenching as if anxious to crush some human skulls.

He lifted his head to give a final wordless bellow, and every other emotion I possessed was suddenly replaced by adrenaline-fueled dread as we locked eyes with one another.

_"You!"_ He rumbled, his mouth dropping open to reveal dirty teeth that resembled miniature bricks.

"Me!" I squeaked, clenching my eyes shut to prepare myself for the impact the giant cave troll fist swinging at me would bring.

--

A/N

Well, Jinx's day just went from pretty freakin' awesome to bad. Do you like the description I put in for Nuada's training? Hope so. Took me a while to figure it all out, seeing as I don't actually own the movie on DVD.

Thank the gods for youtube!

Please review, because having no reviews makes me sad. If you hate this story, tell me, just so I know that you've read it. And when you're not telling me, tell me how to FIX the story to make it better.

And, as always, tell me if I'm Mary-Sue-ing this character. I've taken a solemn vow to shoot all Mary-Sues, and…I want Jinx to live!!

Review please!


	4. Doggedness

Wink unclenched his giant fist just before it hit me, and instead of flying across the tunnel to splatter on the opposite wall, I found myself being batted from the ceiling like some kind of bothersome insect with enough force to both knock the breath out of me and bruise my ribs.

"What is it, Wink?" Nuada said, turning. I suspected his view of me was obstructed by the hulking, growling wall of cave troll who was too busy towering over me and chewing me out to respond.

_"You! You from the Market! You followed me you lowly, slimy, spying, black-hearted—"  
_Nuada stopped his companion's ranting by placing a firm hand on his arm and muttering something to him that I didn't quite catch in my winded state. I was curled like a wounded animal against the cold, slick wall of the tunnel, cautiously massaging my hurt ribs with a hand. "Ouch…" I murmured as I touched a particularly sore spot. "It's good to see you too, good Mister Wink. I do believe you've bruised my ribs."

The once-prince directed Wink with his spear toward the chamber, and after little protesting the troll reluctantly shuffled off, rumbling to himself.

And then it was just me and Nuada, the bare-chested once-prince standing over me, his breathing still slightly labored from training, looking at me with an odd mix of anger and confusion... "You," he said, his brow creasing. "What are you doing here?"

Taking a deep breath to hastily replace what my lungs had lost, I managed to sit myself up against the wall and answer, "I was…curious…about what you wanted to use all those faeries for, Prince Nuada." I decided he probably wouldn't like it if I called him a once-prince. "You took them away in crates bearing the royal war emblem. Forgive me if I overstepped any boundaries, Prince, but—"

_"Leave here,"_ he suddenly interrupted me in Elvish. As if the bitter taste of an apology in my mouth wasn't enough, the superior tone of his voice set my blood boiling. I'm a demon, see—I just naturally have issues with authority. My kind _was_ cast from Heaven for not following our leader with blind faith, after all.

_"Leave here and tell no one what you've seen or heard. Go now, demon, before my friend loses his temper."_

I swallowed and glanced over at Wink, who was nudging one of the rattling crates with a hoof, grunting quietly. It seemed he'd cooled off in a very short amount of time. I didn't fancy the thought of being cuffed again by the troll, because it seemed to me that the once-prince was implying that this time he wouldn't save me.

Well that just made me angry.

I almost spat back with a dangerous "and what if I don't leave", but for once I thought about what I wanted to say before saying it. Maybe playing for a little sympathy would be a better bet. After all, the once-prince vowed to return only when his people needed him, right? He must care some amount about us all.

And so, wincing as I held a hand to my ribs, I looked up at him with big, innocent amber eyes and almost whimpered, "But what if I _can't_ leave? I'm hurt. I can…barely breath."

I squirmed a little and took another deep, steadying breath to show him I was serious, and almost at once his hard gaze softened. "Can you make it back to the Market?" He inquired, leaning down and extending a hand.

I'd never touched a prince before, but the feel of his hand certainly suited the look of it. It was strong and a little hard, but still soft enough to remind me of flesh and not simply warm stone. Almost effortlessly he pulled me to my feet, and this time when I had to catch my breath it was for real. I made a mental note never to upset Mister Wink again if I could help it.

"I don't know," I breathed, leaning against him a little partly for support and partly to feel his sculpted muscles against my side. His skin was hot even through my human clothing.

He seemed to be thinking for a minute as I struggled to straighten myself up, and when I finally accomplished the task he told me, "You may stay here, until you are well again—"

_"The Hell!"_ Wink growled, whirling around, making me flinch. Nuada quickly altered his offer. "But you must be gone before we return."

_Find out where they're going!_ Curiosity prompted. After what it had led to, I suppose the smart thing to do would've been to tell curiosity to shove it, but the reckless part of me was very strong, and before I knew what I was doing I was agreeing with it. The pain in my ribs ceased to mean anything, and almost disappeared entirely.

"Couldn't I come with you?" I countered, my eyes lighting up. The warmth in the once-prince's own eyes seemed to fade significantly. Though he still supported me, I felt his body tense as he said a little less softly, "What do you know about where we are going? If you are well enough to walk, then you should leave here—as I said."

"But—!"

_"Leave!!"_ Wink roared. Nuada's supporting body suddenly left my side, and he began to don his leather tunic once again, along with his red sash. I watched him moodily, resisting the urge to tell him "I can go where I damn well please". I couldn't say that to any sort of prince—at least not while that spear of his was still within his reach, nor while his giant troll friend was in a black mood.

He finished tying the sash about his waist, and I realized that this time he wore a war emblem on his torso as well, flashing silver. He looked up from his redressing and gave me a dangerous look. "You're still here," he said in that same superior tone.

That pretty much tore it.

"Yes, Prince Nuada," I said quickly, heat rising in my face, "I _am_ still here, and I plan on being here until I understand what's going on! And if you won't tell me I'll follow you until I figure it out! So how about it?"

It took several seconds of that once-prince staring at me before I started to fear for my life and curse my treacherous tongue. I was all ready to fade out of the physical world when the once-prince took the spear from its place strapped to his back, and I admittedly took a step or two back in a futile attempt to avoid his strike; but all he did was turn to Wink, jerk his head toward the depths of the tunnel, and say, _"It's time to go."_

_"Finally,"_ Wink grunted, grabbing the two crates beside him and following the pale prince. Nuada took one of the crates from his companion before leading the way down the tunnel without a second look at me.

I swore to the nearest divinity I was going to get my claws into at least one of those two if it killed me. Which it probably would, I thought to myself, and then decided against it in favor of simply following them.

_Good girl,_ curiosity praised me as I clambered up the nearest tunnel wall. "Shove it!" I growled through gritted teeth before scampering across the ceiling after the two strangers.

--

A/N

I tried to keep Nuada in character, which means having him like creatures not human, but having him still have that sort of steely edge that makes him snap at people. Like in the movie when he's yelling at Wink to find Nuala after he kills his father. That was just being bossy.

I suppose if anybody ever talked back to him like Jinx did, he would slice some random appendage off him/her, but I want Jinx to live! She cannot live if she dies from blood loss.

Therefore, please do not bring it up unless you think Nuada should either slap or threaten her. Slapping is girly and threatening is just a bit _too_ evil for him this early in the movie, especially since it would be against one of his own.

Review, please!! Please review!


	5. Curiosity Nearly Killed the Cat

It seemed, however, that Mister Wink had learned his lesson from before and barely halfway down the tunnel he reached up and nabbed me from the ceiling by roughly grasping me around my midsection with his mechanical hand. It was a significantly painful affair, on my part.

_"L-let…me…go!"_ I gasped, struggling to gain some room for my squashed lungs. Nuada had stopped a few feet ahead of his friend, and now watched with polite interest as I was slowly being suffocated.

_"Why should I?"_ Wink rumbled his voice like thunder. _"The Prince ordered you to leave, and you disobeyed. To disobey the word of royalty is to bring death upon oneself, little demon."_

"I can't…b-breathe!" I was painfully aware of the fact that my thrashing was becoming weaker. Colored spots danced on the edges of the blackness closing in on my vision.

The troll ripped his gaze from me and asked the once-prince in a much gentler tone than the one he'd used to speak to me, _"What shall I do with it, my friend?"_

I twisted in Wink's grasp, my nails growing into claws that skittered with no effect across the metal surface of his giant hand, and looked down at the once-prince, true fear maybe flickering in my eyes.

_"Let me see her," _he said, and Wink obliged, lowering me from his eye-level to Nuada's. The once-prince looked me over as my eyelids fluttered. Finally he asked, "Why do you follow us?"

"Curious!" I gasped. "Just…curious…"

"And if I were to tell you where we are going, would you stop?"

I opened my mouth, but I couldn't answer. Wink seemed to be subtly trying to see how hard he'd have to squeeze to make me pop, and I was very close to doing just that—or at least it felt like it. On the verge of death, what little glamour I habitually cloaked myself in began to flicker and fade away. I would feel it sloughing off like a second layer of skin I'd been clothed in for too long. My claws became black and my skin became almost scarlet in color to match my hair. It was not a comfortable feeling.

_"Release her, Wink! You're killing her."_

Relief flooded into me in the form of oxygen and I fell immediately to my knees, gasping like a fish returned to water. "Thanks," I managed to choke out before the flat of Nuada's spearhead lifted my chin up so I was forced to look at him.

"We are going to the surface," he said, his golden eyes burning into mine, "to fetch the piece of the royal Crown of Bethmora my father long ago bestowed upon _them_—those _humans_ above. They do not deserve it anymore—they never deserved it."

I heard all of this, and to be frank, I didn't really care. All I could think about was the deadly tip of the spear lovingly tickling my throat every time I swallowed.

Sensing my unease, perhaps, the once-prince shifted the spearhead so that it did not rest quite so close to the main passageway of my lifeblood; and cocking his head to one side he murmured, _"So, demon—is your curiosity not satisfied? For that is what we mean to do."_

_"It will lead to war, the unveiling of our world," _I breathed.

He scowled and shook his head, not angrily, but as if scornful of my naivety. _"What of it?" _He demanded. _"Those beasts up there don't belong on this earth. They are killing it, and if the only way to save my people is to destroy the humans, then so be it."_

He jerked the spear out from beneath my face, and I lowered my gaze thoughtfully. "It…makes sense," I said eventually, looking up to him again. "If the earth dies, we all die. But…if _they_ die…the earth and all of the rest of us survive. It makes sense," I repeated sincerely.

It seemed this was not the reaction the once-prince had expected; he set down his heavy war crate and re-sheathed his weapon before crouching down in front of me. "Exactly," he said, actually smiling. "It's either _them_, or _us_, demon, and you have chosen the right side."

I frowned, slightly wounded that he would think I'd be on the side of anything so horrible as the humans. I voiced this to him, and he gave a low laugh somewhere in his throat. "My friend," he said suddenly, looking up at Wink, "what do you think of her now?"

Wink shook his head like a startled dog and grunted an answer, "_The little demon speaks truthfully. She speaks for our cause. I…apologize…for threatening your life."_

"No problem," I replied, followed by a bark of laughter that hurt like hell. "But…Prince Nuada…" I didn't know quite how to voice it without sounding like some sort of child pleading to go on a fun little outing, though that's exactly how I felt on the inside. I wanted to go with them, to help—but at the same time I didn't want any part in what they were about to do. That, I figured, was probably just the part of me that feared for my own hide.

Luckily, however, the once-prince caught on easily.

"You wish to come with us, still, demon?" He asked in a non-hostile tone, coming gracefully to his feet again.

_"If it's not too much trouble…"_ I admitted. _"Just tell me what to do, good prince. I'm a demon after all—it's in my nature to upset the balance of mortal lives."_

That last part made his smile grow until it finally became something charming and amused again, and the once-prince extended a hand and once again helped me to my own feet. "Wink?" He inquired, locking gazes with his companion.

The cave troll merely dipped his head in assent before leading the way down the tunnel again. Nuada released me and took up his rattling war crate again, nodding his head in the direction of Wink's retreating back. "This way—and we must hurry."

_"Yes Prince Nuada,"_ I replied like a good little demon as I mimicked his swift gait into the darkness.

--

A/N

Man, I am just shelling these chapters OUT, aren't I? This's just a boredom project, more than anything else. Next up is the auction scene! Woo!

Oh, and I would just like to say, yes I did _borrow_ that whole "if the earth dies, we all die, if they die, then the earth survives" thing from The Day the Earth Stood Still. I do not own anything from that movie. I don't even the DVD. So there.

Report Mary-Sue-ness and plot stuff or Nuada behavioral stuff!

I just love the little face-glomp creature, and then Nuada's like "Be quiet…" in that hilariously disdainful way. And then that guy in the crowd covers his dog's eyes! Ha!

I'm offa school today, nyea!

Review please? Please? Review!! ReViEw!


	6. Auction Gone Awry

Nuada explained the plan to me in Elvish as we traversed the seemingly endless winding tunnels beneath Manhattan. He told me that first we had to make our way to a derelict subway station because Wink was too large to fit through any of the exits that manholes provided. Wink would enter through a service door in the back of the building—the building the royal crown was being put on _auction_ like some lowly piece of primitive art—and take out whatever pathetic excuse for security the humans had organized there. He'd meet Nuada and me upstairs, where we would both be after scaling the side of the building, and deliver the second war crate after we'd procured the crown. After that, the faeries would be released and…those humans wouldn't be in any state to further harm the earth.

It sounded like a good plan to me, but I decided to add my own little personal touch. I knew if there were lights on in the building—and there were bound to be—the tooth faeries would be slightly more inclined to stay in their crowded crates than rush out in a ravenous swarm, so…

_"Quickly,"_ Nuada said to me in a hushed voice as I stood before the black box set into the brick wall. Downtown Manhattan was humming, as always, with human activity, and it stank of garbage and car exhaust. Rain was coming down in a depressing drizzle from the night sky—which was impossibly black because the city's lights chased away all of the stars.

_"Just a minute…"_ I whispered back to him before fitting my tongue between my teeth and using a little demon telekinesis to work open the box. It swung open after barely two seconds—a new personal record—and I looked over to where I'd heard the once-prince's voice. _"I'm going to—"_ The words died in my throat as I saw through the darkness that the elf no longer stood where he once did.

I craned my neck upwards and saw a man in a suit standing halfway in the rain, looking about with a confused expression on his face. Shrugging, he turned to go back inside, and with my inhuman hearing I heard him gasp—and then there was the smell of blood.

"There goes the lucky one," I mumbled to myself as I peered at the multicolored wires coiled around one another inside the black power box. After a minute I chose one at random and sliced it with a swiftly grown claw. The terrified gasps filtered through the open balcony door, making me smile. "Got it!"

After that I scampered up the wall as fast as I could, anxious that I might miss the big show. I suspected Nuada wouldn't simply take the crown and let the faeries loose without a few noble words for the cause, and I was desperate to see the looks on all those human faces when Mister Wink made his entrance.

Lucky for me, I was a little early.

I carefully stepped over the body of the man, who was very nearly decapitated, closed the balcony doors behind me, and padded across the fine carpet toward a doorway that opened into the main auctioning room. There was a bald man in wire-rimmed glasses standing behind a tall podium surrounded by monitors filled only with salt-and-pepper static, trying in a professional manner to calm his panicking buyers.

"…auction will restart shortly," he was saying. "I'm sure this is just a temporary loss of power."

He stepped out from behind his podium and gestured to a small wooden box on a cart in front of it. I could see in the dim light cast by the buzzing monitors the glistening gold crownpiece sitting atop a plush blue pillow like some kind of trophy. It made me scowl.

"And now," the auctioneer announced, "for the first time at auction, a piece of the royal Crown of Bethmora—coming to us from a long lost culture."

"Lost? Not at all." Nuada's voice rang out across the room, making the gaudily dressed humans jump and gasp, which in turn made me laugh, which in turn made the humans twist in their seats and gasp yet again.

I stepped into the middle of the doorway and gave everyone a jaunty little wave and a friendly grin, letting just a little of the glamour fall from my teeth so they appeared as fangs. A flash of lightning brought on the desired effect, which was just a little more panic than was going on a few seconds ago. Nuada went on speaking as though I hadn't appeared, stalking toward the man and his podium, "Forgotten by _you_, perhaps, but still very, very much alive."

I strolled past the back rows of confused buyers, trailing my claws across the backs of their seats so that they leaned forward with little startled cries when I came near. Walking up the wide, carpeted isle between the two seating sections, I positively relished the feeling of frightened eyes all staring at me—staring as if I would bound into their ranks and maul them or something. It made me feel very important and very _dangerous. _

The auctioneer was looking back and forth between Nuada and myself, his forehead developing upset furrows as he demanded furiously of us both, "Who are you people!? Sir, please identify yourself! You two can't just—"

"I am Prince Nuada Silverlance," the once-prince interrupted, heavily setting down the war crate he'd been carrying over his shoulder. "And I am here, sir, to reclaim what is rightfully mine."

He stood a little taller as he announced his title, and I suddenly thought of him from the human's point of view: An oddly-dressed man whose flesh resembled white marble and had hair that mimicked the color of moonlight. The monitors cast their fizzing light in a way that made the faint scars on the once-prince's face appear deeper and more grotesque than they were, lending him a sinister look. I wondered if I looked half as terrifying as the once-prince and his gleaming golden eyes.

"And I am Jinx, the demon," I introduced myself, trying to proudly draw myself up as Nuada had. "I'm just hired help, but I _will_ rip your head off if you try to stop us—just thought I might warn you." That wasn't exactly the foreboding introduction I'd been going for at first, but I suppose I at least finished it off nicely.

The auctioneer, to my annoyance, didn't seem impressed. "Security!" he barked, looking around himself with the beginnings of fear in his eyes, "Call security!"

And, of course, security came flying through the doors right on cue. That is, _literally_ flying _through_ the doors.

The humans began to vacate their seats—eyes wide, mouths twisted in horrified cries as the two security guards hit the floor and rolled almost all the way up the isle. Among the shattered glass—all that remained of the doors—was a giant metal hand, clenched into a deadly fist, with a thick chain attacked to the wrist. The screaming reached a higher level as the hand promptly picked itself up and scuttled across the floor like some manner of crab or spider, following the chain back to the hulking silhouette in the broken doorway.

Mister Wink reeled in the appendage after it'd reached his cloven hooves and took a few steps forward into the flickering monitor lights, the second war crate hefted over his shoulder by his flesh hand. Humans backpedaled to avoid him, only to remember that the pale man and sharp-toothed woman were what they were headed toward. They were trapped, and they wouldn't stop screaming.

Wink looked very nearly abashed for a moment, shying his head away from their horrified gazes, but then he thrust his face forward and roared, _"QUIET!"_

Of course, the humans neither understood nor obeyed.

The auctioneer, a sheen of sweat building on his bald head, looked at both Nuada and me again, his voice quavering as he demanded, "What do you think you're doing? This's outrageous!"

I couldn't help but laugh at the false bravery he was trying to conceal his cowardice behind, and I teased him a bit, "Out_rageous_! Such tough language for such a small, frightened man! Hahaha!"

He hastily corrected himself, taking a half-step back away from me and instead speaking directly to Nuada, which ticked me off just a little bit. "Uh, take what you want, please," he begged. "Please, anything! Take anything!"

I watched interestedly as Nuada slid his hand into a leather pouch at his waist, withdrawing it with something round clutched gently within his grasp. The auctioneer looked at it, dumbstruck and at a loss for words, as the quivering thing began to uncurl itself. Before he even knew what was happening, the gulpher leapt out and attached itself to his face, spreading its oozy dark green tentacles across his entire head to keep its grip. After a moment it opened a single, large, yellow eye and blinked at me before the man dropped to the ground, dead. The gulpher proceeded to engulf the man's entire head with its body, and soon enough the human would have no head at all and would be only a corpse in a tux with several gulpher young growing inside of his stomach.

Only Nuada, I thought to myself, would think to kill by actually _giving_ a creature life.

I looked to the humans to observe their reaction, and it was _wonderful_! A man in the front row stared with his mouth gaping at Nuada, while shielding the eyes of his fluffy pomeranian lapdog with a hand as if it were a child witnessing something profane. Everyone was screaming, scattering seats about in their futile hurry to find an escape that was not there, but it seemed Nuada had had enough.

"Sit! Down!" He ordered over the din, and with a multitude of whimpers the humans obeyed.

I turned back to look at him and saw that he had the crown piece clutched in his left hand, and his eyes were both sad and angry as he spat out the words as if they were foul on his tongue. "Proud, empty, hollow…_things_ that you are—let this remind you…why you once feared the dark."

And with that, he took the handle on the lid of his war crate and pulled it slowly open. Small, startled blue faces with eyes like those of black beetles looked around cautiously before the faeries' pinhole nostrils scented all of the frightened food around them and, upper lips withdrawing beyond their foreheads, they flew into the crowd in a screeching blue cloud. Not a second after, Wink released his own faeries; and even though I didn't think much of their entire species, I winced in something like sympathy for the humans that were being eaten alive.

"What a nasty way to go," I said more to myself than Nuada, directing my telekinesis with my hands to keep away any faeries who thought they could take a bite out of me. I saw that a few of them had landed on Mister Wink, but the troll's tough hide was proving a mite too tough for their taste, and soon enough the faeries found some still-struggling prey to feed upon instead.

"It's what they deserve," he answered indifferently. Raising the crownpiece, he told me, "And now that I have this, we need to get the final two pieces."

I raised my eyebrows, the question teetering on my lips, but the once-prince answered before I could even ask.

"You may come," he said. "You proved…useful, and I may need you again. What prompted you to get rid of the lights?"

I shrugged and gave him a smile as I returned the glamour to my teeth. "I just know my merchandise," was all I said, and he accepted that answer with a small nod.

"Come, we must go."

--

A/N

Yeah, just shellin 'em out here…and I only have one review…sigh…

I made up all that junk about the "gulpher" by the way. I've no idea what it's really called, or why it feels the need to attach to the face of the poor, scared bald man. I just think its big eyeball is _super_ adorable!

Eh…Not much to say here. Jinx got to be pretty scary in this chapter, yes? I think Nuada looks horrible in this scene—not in terms of makeup or anything, but he looks really scary in that lighting.

Course, if I were at that auction I would be like "oh my gosh, you're finally here! Do you even KNOW how many auctions are held in downtown Manhattan!? A lot!" and then I would rush up to hug him and he would probably, I dunno…stab me or something.

Maybe he'd tell me there's candy in the war crate and to stick my hand in to get it. That'd be funny.

Reviews, please?


	7. A Mild Disagreement

It was midnight by the time we'd reached the east side railyards, and the rain was coming down in freezing sheets. I pulled my arms out of the sleeves of my sodden jacket and instead clutched it tightly around myself like a blanket, though that did little to stop the cold from reaching me. The tail-end of a train was vanishing into the city on a track several feet above us.

I shook my head in a vain effort to clear the water from it, but even though I was sheltering in Mister Wink's shadow I remained completely drenched.

Nuada was looking at a billboard framed in weeds and marked with scrawls of graffiti. It depicted a human family, all smiling with unnaturally white teeth, and the bold letters declared ecstatically, _Coming Next Summer! Three Point Shopping Mall! Shop shop shop!_

He turned sharply and exchanged an angry, accusing look with Wink before leading the way toward a shabby, derelict building with large windows that, if not boarded up, were all broken and filled with a warm amber glow.

Wink followed, and I kept close by his side, a pathetic figured trying to make myself small enough to hide from the rain.

--

Inside the building, the cold seemed to be stopped in its tracks, and I took a deep breath to welcome the warm air into my shivering lungs. Despite how grateful I was to be out of the rain, I couldn't help but notice the heaps of garbage and scrap metal thrown about the place. A rusty spiral staircase led to a broken hole in the ceiling, and I stumbled on what appeared to be the bottom half of a ladder hidden beneath s thick layer of dead leaves and rubbish.

Nuada looked around at the filth-stained walls with a strange look on his face until a voice from another room brought him back from his thoughts.

"Your Royal Highness!" The obeisant male voice called.

The once-prince walked into a thin doorway I hadn't seen before, one that barely allowed Wink's broad body to pass through, and I followed behind the two of them, grabbing fistfuls of my hair and squeezing the water out of it, then doing the same with my jacket.

The room was larger even than Wink's chamber beneath the city, and the dirt floor was littered with crumpled golden leaves. Several steps led down into the room, whose walls were of dirty concrete and rusted pipes, and on the other side several steps led upward again to another doorway, before which stood a tall sphickal in long black robes. Four insectile guards stood on either side of him, lining the steps, seeming docile except for the massive cleaver swords they held in their hands.

I shivered at the sight of those guards and their aprons of black armor. They had no faces, only bird-shaped masses of bone sat atop their grey human-ish bodies, and their sandals held three-toed, clawed feet. They all stood as still as statues as we entered, Nuada moving forward into the middle of the chamber, Wink and I staying back by the entrance.

_"Prince Nuada," _the sphickal said in Elvish, his long hands moving continuously as if crooked willow branches caught in a breeze, _"you honor us with your return."_

He bowed his long, bald head low until all that could be seen of him were the pale triangles of his miniature ear-flaps. His entire neck was a single thick blob of fat, and his arms were like twigs as he gestured outward as he bowed. Looking up again, his tiny, black-rimmed eyes gazed on the once-prince with poorly-masked unease. The black tear lines stretching down his long face curled toward his small, down-turned lips.

Switching back into the human tongue again, he told Nuada, "Before entering the council chamber, you must…_surrender _your weapon," he gestured to the sword the once-prince had tucked tightly beneath his arm, and I noticed the way he shied his head away slightly as if afraid Nuada might lash out at him.

"I will not," Nuada said, and indeed he began to draw his blade.

At once, the guards raised their cleaver swords, each taking a simultaneous step forward. Wink gave a wordless roar of protest, and I forced myself to take a brave step forward, glamour falling from my raised hand so that I could show off my claws.

The sphickal shook his head frantically, his long fingers curling back against the red velvet stripe running down the chest of his robes. "It is _protocol_, Sire, for peasant and prince alike."

At that Nuada spun forward, moved nimbly to dodge the guards that rushed forward, and stopped with the silver blade of a sword nestled between two rolls of the subservient creature's neck fat, making him cry out in fear.

_"It will be my pleasure to finish you off, Chamberlain,"_ the once-prince hissed.

I was just about to jump in to help when from behind me a soft female voice said kindly, _"Please, brother, surrender it."_

I whirled around and found myself nearly face-to-face with who could only be Princess Nuala. Her face was as pale as her brother's, though her eyes and lips were dusted with gold rather than coal. Her hair, however, was darker than Nuada's—pale gold rather than near-white. She was dressed in flowing robes of red and black, her hands clasped in front of her waist, and I immediately recognized the second crownpiece she wore in a belt of find gold chains about her waist.

I moved out of her way more out of surprise than politeness, and Wink had the courtesy to mumble, _"Princess…"_

I heard the gentle sound of Nuada's blade abandoning the Chamberlain's throat, and then he was saying, "For you, sister, anything."

The princess dipped her head gracefully with a small smile.

I turned to look back to her brother, and saw that he was handing his sword and spear to a guard, his eyes bright and only for Nuala. The Chamberlain looked indescribably relieved.

"Princess Nuala," he said, bowing in the same manner he had upon Nuada's appearance. "Your timing is excellent, as always."

That led me to believe this had happened before in the past, but I didn't have much time to dwell on it before I found myself caught under the golden gaze of the princess herself.

It was not a scrutinizing, critical look she gave me, but one of polite interest. "I have never seen you before," she said in the human tongue. "Who are you, and how do you know my brother?"

I returned the princess's smile and stopped wringing the wetness out of my jacket. "Princess Nuala, I am the demon, Jinx—just Jinx—and I met your brother just tonight outside of the Troll Market. I am accompanying him and good Mister Wink…on a venture of sorts."

"I see," she said, her eyes coming away from me, her beautiful pale face becoming troubled. A few seconds passed before she turned to me, extended one of her hands, and told me, "Give me your hand, please."

"Uh…of course, princess." What else could I do but free one hand from my jacket and begin to offer my hand to her?

But we were interrupted as Nuada appeared beside me and firmly gripped my right arm, preventing me from showing it to the princess. "Sister," he said, his eyes boring into her own, "we must go to the council chamber. Come, demon." He gave my arm a jerk and I found myself being pulled along across the wide room, followed by Wink and Nuala.

The Chamberlain stopped himself just beyond his post, dropping his face nearly to his chest, twig-ish arms curling into his chest as he bowed us in. "Sire…_please_…"

Everyone ignored him and proceeded onward.

--

A/N

I've had this in my computer for a while, so I just figure I'll post it now, because chances are I'm actually not going to be finishing it any time soon at all. Apparently the internet thinks it's too good to have the chamber room scene anywhere on it, so I'm gonna have to figure something out here.

Remember also, this is a boredom project—I'm not doing this for you guys.

Plus, if you've taken a look at my archives or whatever, you'll see I have two other stories that remain unfinished mostly due to the fact that I lost interest in them. I'm like that, okay?

Review if you feel like it.


	8. The Council Chamber

The Council Chamber was similar to the rest of the building: dirty and unfit for its new purpose—its old purpose being a boiler room. Golden leaves like those in the entrance hall were eternally drifting down from above before settling on the dirt floor. I glanced around us uneasily at the Great King's council, made up mostly of pale elves and a few masked Nameless—those who conduct nature itself.

Whispering broke out among the council at the sight of Nuada stalking into his father's chamber after so many years of exile. More than a few pair of golden eyes flickered to Mister Wink and I, and I had to resist the urge to hide behind the massive troll again. I was flustered, to say the least.

Nuada continued forward into the center of the chamber while Wink and I hung back, beside the pair of insectile guards in the doorway.

The once-prince kneeled before the Great King's guard, made up of lines of four or five guards on either side of his gilded throne, and said simply, _"Father."_

_ "Why?"_ King Balor implored in an ancient voice, and his son raised his head. _"Why have you done this? Why!?"_

Nuada rose and replied in the human tongue, "To set us free. All of us, Father." His voice was gentle as I hadn't heard it yet, as if he'd had this conversation many times before and wished the Great King would give in to his cause.

But this was not the case. King Balor shook his great horned head and told his son, _"You have broken an ancient truce between our people and mankind."_

"A truce based on shame!" the once-prince cried. "The humans! The humans have forgotten the gods, destroyed the earth—and for what?"

He turned to the Council, his eyes boring into each and every one of them as he told them, "Parking lots! Shopping malls! Greed has burned a hole in their hearts that will never be filled!" Nuada whirled around and yelled to his father, "They will _never _have enough!"

King Balor stroked his long white beard for a moment, as if considering Nuada's argument, and then he nodded. My heart leapt at the thought of having the Great King on our side, but my hopes fell flat on the ground when he explained, _"What humans do is in their nature; to honor the truce is in ours."_

"Honor," Nuada scoffed disbelievingly. "Look at this place! Where is the honor in it!?" His voice echoed off the sooty stone walls and rusted pipes. Shaking his head, Nuada went on in a disappointed tone, "Father, you were once a proud warrior…when did you become their pet?"

And the Great King finally looked away, apparently ashamed.

Nuada turned to the Council once again and declared in a proud, strong voice, "I have returned from exile to wage war and reclaim _our_ land—_our _birthright! And for that I will call upon the help of all of my people and they _will_ answer! The good…! The bad…!"

He turned to his father and said more quietly, holding aloft the crownpiece we'd taken from the humans. "And the worst."

King Balor clutched the crownpiece he wore as a belt, much like Nuala had, and exclaimed with disbelief, _"The Golden Army! You cannot be that mad!"_

"Perhaps I am…" Nuada replied quietly. "Perhaps they made me so…"

I jumped as a third voice joined the debate from right beside me. Nuala had appeared so silently that not even I had heard her approach. Wink snorted in surprise.

_"Awaken the army…but our green fields cannot grow out of all that blood."_ She touched the crownpiece on her waist as if it were the heart Nuada was breaking. _"Let the army sleep," _she begged. _"If our days have ended, let us all fade."_

The once-prince turned to his sister, glaring at her not in anger but in determination. His voice held the weight of his suffering as he insisted, "We will not _fade_."

Nuala bowed her head and stepped back beside me, sadness glittering in her beautiful eyes. She attempted to silently beseech Wink and I to talk some sense into her brother, but Wink had turned his gaze back to the once-prince and I only responded with an apologetic look.

_"For the last time, my son, I ask you: is this the path you wish to take?" _ King Balor inquired, sounding like he would gladly trade anything for his son to say no.

But he was disappointed. "It is," Nuada answered at once. "I am sorry, Father."

King Balor shook his head and nearly moaned, _"Then you leave me no choice…Death!"_

I gasped at this order. Would the Great King truly have his own beloved son killed for the sake of a peace that barely existed at all!? All of the guards in the room drew their cleaver swords in a symphony of blades slipping from sheaths, and stood battle-ready. I looked at Wink for a clue as to what to do, but he remained a silent boulder of flesh.

Nuada turned his head, not daring to look directly at her, and asked his sister quietly, "And you, sister…are you at peace with your king's verdict?"

Nuala folded her hands and replied mournfully but resigned, "I am, my brother…I am."

Nuada cast his gaze to the floor, his last hope lost. After a moment of silence he looked to his father and stated, "Then very well. Death it is."

I grabbed Wink's giant arm as nearly a reflex, shaking with a mixture of excitement and indescribable terror. _"What do we do!?"_ I hissed.

"_You wait," _he growled, clenching his metal fist.

Suddenly, the insectile guard nearest Nuada swung his sword in an attempt to decapitate the once-prince, but Nuada was too swift and he ducked beneath the blade easily. He twirled, struck another charging guard in the stomach with his open palm, and I could hear the breath screech out of the creature. Nuada used his opponent's arm as a means of flipping himself up over its back, and he proceeded to wrench the guard's right arm out of its socket and then steal the extra cleaver sword in the sheath on its back.

He turned with teeth bared and parried the blow of a guard's sword before quickly jabbing his own stolen blade into its gut. It screamed and fell to the floor, twitching.

I looked on in a sort of horrified awe as the two guards beside Wink and I in the doorway ran forward with their weapons held high, but Wink stopped one of them by jabbing a spike on his mechanical hand into its gut. Blue-black blood spurted across the front of my suit jacket, which I'd held up to shield me at the last second.

I lowered my jacket just in time to see Wink, with a roar of rage, launch his fist into the head of the second guard, pulling it back by its birdlike skull so he could pummel it into the dirt at a closer range. I took this as my cue to finally join the battle.

Nuada ran into the heart of the fray while I picked off guards at its edges. I jumped up onto the railing that kept the stoic Council separated from things and rebounded onto the shoulders of a guard; I grabbed its beak and wrenched its head back so hard that its neck snapped and it crumpled to the floor. I rolled on the ground, tried and failed to kick a guard's legs out from underneath it, and just as it raised its weapon against me Nuada stabbed its clawed foot.

The guard tossed its head and made a sound like a hoard of banshees having their fingernails pulled out before blindly swinging his weapon in Nuada's direction. Nuada bent backward at the waist and managed to duck beneath the blow before raising his cleaver sword and swiftly beheading the guard. Its head soared across the room, trailing blood and tendrils of black flesh.

He ran across the chamber and across a wall, and in the meantime I snatched a guard from behind and this time succeeded in kicking a leg out from under it. When it hit the ground I threw away my glamour just long enough to slash out its exposed throat with my claws, and after a brief screech it lay dying in a pool of its own blood.

Nuada had beheaded another guard, but I turned and saw him punched in the face by yet another. He whirled and shoved his cleaver into the stomach of his attacker's remaining comrade before looking up at Nuala.

I could see a stream of watery gold flowing from his nose, and I realized the guard's punch must've made him bleed. Nuala looked at her brother in horror as her own nose began to bleed, and I knew that the stories of the bond of the twins were all true. Whatever he suffered, she would always suffer the same, and vice versa.

The once-prince turned away from his sister and grabbed another sword from the ground, spinning the two of them as if to test the balance of their blades. I wiped the inky blood from my hand and leapt onto the wall, crouching there horizontally should I be needed, for there were only two guards left between Nuada and the crownpiece his father wore.

King Balor stood from his throne, probably the first time he'd done such a thing in many years, and raised his one arm as if welcoming his son. On the Great King's chest, above the crownpiece, was the Silverlance crest crafted in gold—a symbol of peace and unity. On the waist of the once-prince was the Silverlance seal of war crafted in silver—an image to be hated and feared.

Nuada sprinted forward, and the two remaining guards ran to meet him. They swung their cleaver swords simultaneously, but Nuada leaned backwards and his momentum allowed him to skid nearly parallel to the ground beneath their blades as he raised his own and slit both of their stomachs. He twirled in order to balance himself, used the steps leading to his father's throne as a brake and—

I choked in a mixture of disgust, surprise and grief. Nuada had plunged his blade through his father's ancient armor and into his even more ancient body.

"The King!" I whispered, raising my hands to my face. _"The King is dead! The King, the King, the King is _dead_!"_

Nuada looked on, the beastly anger seeping out of his expression to leave only heartbroken grief. He watched his father's body turn to stone around his blade, and he brought his right hand to his face as if to see if murder had changed its appearance. He took this hand, crying softly but without tears, and touched King Balor's face as flesh turned to marble.

"_I always loved you, Father," _he promised before reaching down to the only part of his father that remained unchanged—the crownpiece. This he grasped with his murdering hand and wrenched from King Balor's stone belt, defiling his corpse as a great chunk of what was once flesh and armor came with it. At this atrocity the Council finally gasped, and I too drew a disbelieving breath.

Nuada paid none of us any mind and brought out the humans' crownpiece, then placed the two of them together. The metal drew itself into one piece on its own, clicking softly as the pieces realigned to accommodate each other. In the end, they formed a headband with a place at the front for the third and final of their number.

"Now…" Nuada called out, burying his grief for the moment, "…now, for the final piece, my sister."

Everyone, even the Council, turned to look into the doorway where Nuala had been standing. She was no longer there. Wink, who'd been closest to the doorway, grunted in confusion. He obviously hadn't noticed her absence.

Nuada left his father's broken body and stalked across the chamber, ignoring the disgusted looks he was receiving from the Council, and demanded, "Where is she, Wink?"

I dropped down to the floor and forced myself to look away from Balor, the only king my world had ever known. Nuada whirled around, his eyes glowing embers filled with rage, and yelled at me, "Where is she!?"

I shrugged cluelessly and cringed under his gaze. Nuada folded the crownpiece and shoved it into the pouch that the gulpher had previously occupied. "Go find her!" he ordered us. "NOW! Find her!!"

"_NUALAAA!!" _Wink roared and stomped out of the chamber. I had no choice but to follow him and use my superior sense of smell to help track Princess Nuala, though the continuing rain made it very difficult—for this I was secretly thankful. I wasn't so sure I wanted to find Nuada's sister, after seeing what he'd done to his father.

The Princess was missing, the Prince was a murderer, I was beginning to question our quest, and the Great King Balor was dead.

--

A/N

Long time no see, eh? Please review. I'm too tired to proof-read this, so I need other people to do it for me.

Next scene is the Troll Market. Yaaay…baby tumors!

By the way: when I finally found the Council Chamber scene (still don't own the DVD) I realized there weren't only elves in the council. In the front are tall things with wooden masks that have various expressions carved into them. They are the ones in red robes with horns. I wasn't really sure what they were—my first instinct was tree spirits—so I just decided to make them Nameless, controllers of nature in general. Those are important to the King of Nature, right?

Review, please. I might actually be continuing with this again. YAY!

By the way 2: Is Jinx's fighting okay?


	9. The Troll Market

Nuada and Wink followed me, while I followed my nose. I was upset with the fact that the rain had stopped some time ago, but my spirits were immediately lifted when my nose led me back to where this had all started: The Troll Market.

As we stood in the hidden cavern at the entrance to the Troll Market, watching a myriad of creatures shuffle, glide, flit, fly, walk, tromp, stomp, limp, crawl, scuttle, and lumber by us, I turned to the once-prince.

"_Sir," _I said, and he turned his head sharply in my direction. He'd cooled down a bit after Princess Nuala's disappearance, so his gaze was softer, but he still looked like he'd sooner yell at me again than be sympathetic. I forced myself to realize that I'd just called him Sir, and that earlier I had cowered before his temper, and the rebellious demon in me flared up in…well, in rebellion.

So I began again, standing straighter and maybe with a micro-hint of smugness in my expression, _"I cannot track Princess Nuala any further than this, I'm afraid. Her scent trail's been lost among…that."_ I gestured to the Market.

The once-prince looked away from me, exchanged a glance with Wink and nodded before turning back to me. "Very well, demon. There are some preparations I must make, but in the meantime you will go with Wink; help him find Nuala, and the crownpiece."

This time it was Wink and I who exchanged a glance—he looked slightly less than thrilled—but neither of us protested. As Nuada ventured into the crowd, which gave him a rather wide berth, he paused beside his friend Wink and said quietly, _"Do not harm her."_

Wink grunted and nodded, and the once-prince quickly disappeared to make his 'preparations'. I stood there awkwardly for a moment before saying, "Wait. Don't harm me? Or Princess Nuala?"

The massive troll snorted and began to lumber off into the crowd, forcing me to run in order to keep up with his huge strides.

"Hey!" I yelped, narrowly avoiding a blue Fishman in some sort of black wetsuit. "Sorry," I said to him before hurrying to catch up with Wink. "Wait for me! I said _wait!_" But he refused to stop, and soon the crowd cut me off.

Grumbling to myself about the diminutive size of cave troll brains—Mister Wink's in particular—I shoved my way over to a wall and clambered up it, disturbing a small roost of tooth faeries along the way. I looked around at those down below, trying to spot the fair princess, but to no avail. I continued to crawl along the wall like a gecko; the beginnings of disappointment festering in my chest as I failed even to spot Wink's gigantic grey form.

_They better not have ditched me, _I thought irately, seating myself on a bundle of the hundreds of wires the Market received power from. _That damn once-prince and his angry, stupid troll friend. Huh! See if I care! See how everyone in the Market cares when they learn the once-prince killed The King!_

I stopped myself on that particular train of thought, because the thought of the Great King's death was not a pleasant one. Sure, demons have their issues with authority, but King Balor had always been more of a benevolent father than a bossy ruler. And the fact that it was all for a measly _war_...

I firmly told my brain to shut up, and in an attempt to change the subject I suddenly realized that I could see my stall from my swinging perch. The faerie cages were still mostly empty, aside from the few faeries that had returned from the museum. They always came back after they'd finished eating everything they could get their grubby little hands on, even though in some part of their pea-sized brains they must've realized they'd eventually be sold off again.

Beside my untended stall a fat Berghbat was giving the host I'd spoken to earlier a shave. Perhaps they would know something of Wink! He wasn't exactly hard to miss, though I'd managed to do that all right.

I stood and tightrope walked the wires until I was directly above my stall, and then I jumped down on top of the cage of faeries, who all fluttered around shrieking and chittering and yapping for more to eat. I ignored them and strode over toward the Berghbat and host. The latter's infant tumor had grown quickly in the few hours I'd been gone, for now it resembled a bald human baby from the torso up jutting out of its host's chest.

I had to avoid a weird talking suit with a clear bubble filled with mist for a skullcap, which tried to shove a couple of Poleroids into my face, before the host finally noticed me.

"Chinks!" he spluttered, speech still marred by his disfigurement. "Vhat are choo doing here!? I heard zat choo were wiz P-Prince Nuada, zat choo had broken ze truce!"

"Huh?" the Berghbat grunted, pausing with the foamy razor in his hand to look at me. His bat-like ears twitched and his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"It isn't _true_, Chinks, is it?" the host went on.

I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could do so the talking suit interrupted our conversation with his Poleroids again.

"Excuse me, lady and gentlemen," the suit said in a male voice with a prominent German accent, "have you seen anyone purchasing zis type of toos-faerie?" He held up a picture of a tiny blue tooth faerie on a metal tray. The poor creature appeared as though it had burned to death; it was covered in singe marks, and its wings were ragged and black.

The host opened his mouth, and for a terrible second I thought he was going to rat me out—if he somehow knew of my involvement in the Great King's death, then it would stand to reason that others would too and not be very happy with me—but instead he shook his big head and answered coldly, "No one sells 'em down here, pal."

"Over in Jersey, maybe," the Berghbat agreed, wiping his razor on the cloth in his other hand.

I silently shook my head and hoped the two of them could feel the waves of appreciation coming off of me. But the suit-man continued to probe.

"Vell…vell what about zis, zhen? Do you recognize zis seal?" he held up a picture of one of Nuada's war crates, the seal of war bright from the camera flash.

We all gasped, though I doubt anyone else was frantically thinking, _how had he gotten the crates!?_

The baby tumor stared at the photo with wide, horrified eyes before burying its head in the host's chest and whimpering, "Make 'im go away! Make 'im go away!" The host looked down at the poor little thing sadly before glaring at the suit-man and spitting, "No! We don't!"

"Please," the suit insisted, "dear sir—"

"You'd better go," the host snarled, the threat in his voice not so thinly veiled. "Now!"

"We'll make it wors your vile," the suit said in what he probably thought was a persuasive tone.

This made the Berghbat snarl like a beast, throw his cloth and razor to the ground and charge the suit-man. Grabbing him by the shoulder, he yelled at the suit, "Don't waste your time! We will not talk!"

It looked like a fight was about to break out, and my money was on the Berghbat, who was easily a head taller than the suit. I edged back, closer to the host, who was trying to calm his trembling tumor.

"Wuh, w-what are you doing—?" the suit cried.

Another voice that appeared to be ignoring him asked the Berghbat boldly, "You're _absolutely _sure about that, huh?"

"Absolutely!"

"You _won't_ talk, eh?"

"Never!"

"_Ever?_" the new voice taunted.

"Never! Ever! EVER!!"

I'd been trying to help sooth the tumor this whole time, but my head jerked up when there was a loud crashing sound; I saw the Berghbat fly off his feet and across the Market. He hit the far wall and tumbled into a giant tub of boiling water that a scrawny thing had been carefully washing plates in. The plates went crashing to the ground and the Berghbat screamed and thrashed as he boiled to death, unable to find the edge of the tub in order to escape.

I stared at the one who'd done this, apparently with a single punch. I didn't want to believe it at first, but upon seeing the massive, bright red stone hand the creature was sporting, it seemed more likely. It reminded me of Wink's mechanical hand, though the swirling glyphs carved into the four-fingered rock meant that it was an actual _part _of the creature.

The bright red killer turned to face us, and I swore in the human language when I saw who it was. I had never seen him before, of course, but somehow a name surfaced from the farthest reaches of my mind. It was a name that every creature of magick knew, though it was unlikely they even knew they knew it until faced with its bearer.

"_Anung Un Rama," _I breathed. His horns were filed down to flat stumps, and his flaming crown was nowhere to be seen, but it was him. The Son of the Fallen One.

He stalked toward the host and I, and I was frozen in a mixture of terror and awe. He was a _prince_ to demonkind! The bringer of doom, the one destined to ruin this world and bring about Hell on Earth!

I had no idea what he intended to do with the two of us, but I suppose whatever my subconscious had in mind wasn't merely a small shove. The Infernal Prince brushed past me and instead grabbed the host's shoulder with his normal left hand. With his stone hand he began repeatedly slapping the host across the face—_left-right-left-right-left-right-left-right-left!!_

He stopped for a moment, allowing the host to take a wheezing breath before giving him a few more hard smacks for good measure. Pulling the host's face close to his own he asked, "You feelin' a little chattier now?"

"We'll never talk!" the infant tumor declared, and I couldn't help but chuckle in spite of the situation.

The Prince drew back his stone hand, forming it into a fist, but the host gasped and cried, "Yes, yes! We vill! Only…don't hit me anymore!"

"Chick-en!" the tumor teased.

The Prince ignored the cute little thing and demanded, "Who bought the tooth faeries!?"

"Prince Nuada! They say Prince Nuada broke ze truce, and now zhere is talk ov war! A war vith the _human world!_"

The Prince looked confused for a second, and seemed to be attempting to recall something. Finally, he just looked at me and said, "That true, Scarlet?"

I realized that in his presence I'd allowed my glamour to slip, making me appear nearly as red as he did. "Yeah," I replied, picking at my claws nervously. "Yeah, Nuada bought the tooth faeries."

He nodded and turned to leave, but then turned back and gently patted the tumor on the head. "Sorry, kid," he apologized before going.

"That's all right!" it chirped.

The suit-man came around from behind me and mimicked the Prince's action, patting the tumor with a gloved hand. "Uh, _nice_ baby," he said in an attempt at a compliment.

"It's not a baby," I told him pointedly. "It's a tumor."

The tumor nodded in agreement as the suit-man jerked his hand back.


	10. The Death of Mister Wink

I began to follow The Infernal Prince, crawling along the walls so that I wouldn't be spotted. The suit-man seemed to be doing a lot of talking and gesturing, and whenever he turned his back (but sometimes even before that) the Prince mocked him by pulling faces or flipping him the bird. It was really very entertaining to watch, and I was glad to know that demonic royalty had a sense of humor.

At one point there was a loud commotion from a corner of the Troll Market—the smashing of wood, a man's voice yelling and a voice I recognized as Mister Wink's roaring back. It sounded like he was beating _someone_ to a pulp. The Prince was finally rid of the suit-man as he hastened his pace and from my vantage point as I followed him I could see Wink standing outside of the Word Smith's store.

Well, standing doesn't quite describe what was going on. Wink was twirling in circles, trying in vain to catch a slippery something that spun and slid every which-way to avoid his hammering metal fist.

I quickly discovered why exactly he was trying to beat the guy, because Princess Nuala stood appearing horrified not too far away.

"Wink!" I shouted down on an impulse. "Wink! Look! It's Princess Nuala!"

This distracted him long enough for The Prince to pull out a cigar, light it, and yank a massive gun out of a holster on his hip. He fired four shots at Wink, which all thankfully glanced off his metal hand with no more than sparks, and I bit my lip in an effort to keep my mouth shut.

I practically fell to the ground in my haste to reach it, and by the time I had Wink's target had gotten to Nuala's side. He appeared to be some variety of fish-man—there are so many of those irksome sub-species when it comes to humanoid creatures—wearing water-filled goggles, a black wetsuit, and a breathing apparatus covering his gills. He was the one I'd bumped into earlier!

"Get outta here, Blue," The Prince told the fish-man, eyeing me as he puffed on his cigar.

"Yes," the one called Blue said. "Uh, come with me, Your Highness." He led her away, and the only one standing between them and Wink was The Prince.

The Prince pointed at me, glowering through his cigar smoke, and growled, "You stay put."

I didn't know what else to do other than comply. It was unlikely I could retrieve the Princess without Wink's help, and the only way I could get Wink's help was to help Wink. All the while every fiber of my being wanted to obey the demonic Prince.

Turning to Wink, The Prince went on, "And you—"

_"OUT OF MY WAY, BEAST!!"_ Wink roared in response.

"Lemme put this to you as delicately as I can."

Wink clenched his mechanical fist, drew it back and launched it into The Prince's face, smashing his cigar into his face and knocking him off his feet. He didn't seem fazed in the least, however, except for one little thing…

"My cigar!" he ground out, pulling the destroyed thing out of the puddle. "It was Cuban! Now you've pissed me off!"

Wink reeled in his fist and flexed the fingers a bit to get them in their proper places again. _"There we go,"_ he mumbled as he advanced on The Prince, who was looking for something else in the puddle's murky depths.

He found it—his gun—but it was too late. Wink hauled him up by his trench coat and lifted The Prince high over his head as if he weighed little to nothing.

"Oh, crap!"

Wink roared wordlessly and chucked him clear across the Market, just past where the Berghbat had perished. I wasn't about to follow the enraged troll on his rampage—maybe climb a couple walls and observe, but not tail him so closely—but he grabbed my arm with his flesh hand and hauled me along, snarling trollish curses against demonkind and telling me that I'd better start being useful.

I guess I was useful, in a way. As soon as we came upon The Prince, struggling to his feet, Wink tossed me at him like a sack of bricks. He batted me aside with his stone hand and I smacked into a wall, suddenly knowing exactly how a bug feels when it smacks into a windshield.

The two beasts duked it out for a while, The Prince getting in a good volley of punches to Wink's stomach. But Wink's smithing apron seemed to double as armor, and he just laughed the blows off before retaliating with a right hook that sent The Prince reeling.

They circled each other, catching their breaths and waiting for an opening, and I momentarily thought about standing between them, forcing them to break it up. Nothing was going to be accomplished by one of them pounding the other into mush, and in the meantime the Princess was getting away!

That idea fled my mind as soon as The Prince rammed his stone fist into Wink's face, then threw his full body weight into shoving him through several marble pillars and a small stack of crates. There was no _way_ I was getting involved in this fight! Besides, I was having trouble choosing sides.

Wink grabbed The Prince by the throat and hammered his head with his metal fist. Luckily, his horn stubs protected his skull; otherwise he would've been in a world of hurt.

Of course, he was thrown into a world of hurt when Wink delivered an uppercut that sent The Prince through a stone support above the Market, and into a cart of human bones (for those in need of calcium and healthy treats for the little ones).

The Prince got back to his feet just as Wink stormed up to him again, and simultaneously they drew back their non-flesh fists. Stone smashed into metal hard enough to dent the fingers; red chips of stone and bits of clockwork flew like shrapnel.

Each of them drew back with pained looks on their faces, flexing their fingers as if to make sure they weren't broken. Wink seemed worse off, though he managed a half-hearted swing that The Prince returned with gusto. Wink went down like a felled tree, and The Prince sat on his massive chest in order to deliver a few more bone-crunching punches to his face.

"Now stay down!" he ordered, climbing off of him. The Prince searched the crowd for a moment before finding me right where he left me—stuck to a wall. He took a few steps toward me, but after that he paused and pulled a strange face. Wincing, he dug around inside his mouth with his human hand before yanking out a single pearly tooth.

"Damn," he said to himself, looking at the bloody thing.

Wink's hooves had managed to find solid ground again, and he seemed okay besides his metal hand. The fingers were dropping bolts, screws and springs everywhere, and I thought he'd probably need to replace the entire hand because of the number The Right Hand of Doom had done.

_"YOU IDIOT!!" _he howled.

"A tooth!" The Prince replied indignantly. I don't think he understood a word out of the troll's mouth. "Ya happy!?" He threw the tooth at Wink, and it bounced harmlessly off his chest.

Wink held up his injured hand, which was falling to bits with every move he made, and whined, _"You don't have any idea how long it took me to make this, let alone how long it'll take for repairs."_

The Prince placed another cigar between his lips and shook his head. "Just give it up, pal. It's over!"

_"I don't think so, Devil."_ He drew back his crumbling fist.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," The Prince warned.

Wink thought about this for a moment before shaking his head and launching his fist with a snarl. The Prince sidestepped it, and to my horror the metal hand flew straight into a gigantic spiked meat-grinder. Cruel iron spikes chewed it up and fed it through, yanking on the chain that connected it to Wink's arm. Wink's hooves began to slip on the filthy ground, and his mouth was a grimace of terror.

"Wink!" I shouted, and bounded forward to help. I grabbed onto his flesh arm and pulled with all my strength, using my telekinesis to try and shove us away from the grinder…but I wasn't strong enough.

The Prince struck a finger on the taught chain and remarked, "Wow. Told ya!"

"Help him, please!" I begged. Sure, I didn't particularly like Wink, but I wasn't about to let him die! "Somebody! Help me! Don't let him—"

Wink stumbled. His footing was lost and I couldn't hold him on my own. The good Mister Wink went tumbling head first into the meat-grinder, which hungrily gobbled him up and spat bits of grey flesh and metal.

I looked away, clenching and unclenching my fists. Nobody had done anything! Nobody had tried to help! To save Wink!

"Damn it all!" I hissed under my breath. "He shouldn't have died like that."

"Yeah," The Prince said, appearing beside me in a cloud of cigar smoke, "and he shouldn't have tried to kidnap the Princess, either. As for _you, _you were with him, right?"

"Yeah," I said cautiously. "So?"

"So I guess that means you're comin' with me."

I nodded slowly. "Okay. I guess I'll—" Before I finished the sentence I was up and running, but I didn't get very far. I ran smack into the fish-man and Princess Nuala, and they had the suit-man in tow.

He shook his head and admonished, "My God, what have you done, Agent Hellboy!? L-look at zis! Now we have to leave!"

"Hellboy?" I echoed. It was a rather unfortunate name, but…more or less accurate, I supposed. As The Prince—Hellboy—moved to meet the fish-man, he grabbed my arm and hauled me along as Wink had.

"Red," the fish-man told him, "this is Princess Nuala."

Hellboy dipped his head to the Princess, then raised his hand—and with it, my arm—and said over the suit-man's nagging, "Well, Blue, this here's Scarlet. Blue, Scarlet; Scarlet, Blue. Scarlet, Princess; Princess—"

"We've met," I spat, trying in vain to free my arm from his grip. "Ouch! Ow, put me down! You're hurting me!"

"And who is zis?" the suit-man demanded. "Agent Hellboy! Release her at once!"

He did not obey, and I could not escape. "I'm Jinx," I said, unwilling to give up the struggle. "Come on, you heard the guy! Release me at once! Lemme go, you big red ape!"

The more time I spent around The Infernal Prince, the more I was beginning to realize that he wasn't just demonic royalty—he was a royal pain in the ass. And Infernal Pain in the behind, if you will.

"This girl was with that guy," Hellboy said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate Wink's remains. "And I'd bet that that guy is with the Prince. Maybe she'll give us a little leverage, huh? You ever think of that, Smokey?"

The suit-man shook his head frantically and continued to blather, "We have to leave! Now! Now!"

"All right then, it's settled. She's coming with us."

Everyone turned and made for the exit, and I proceeded to fight like the demon I was to escape. My telekinetic abilities were too weak to break Hellboy's death grip, however, and eventually I settled for sending a message.

There are multitudes of ways of sending messages throughout the Troll Market, but none as reliable as a Hemitwid. They have two heads, so they're twice as likely to remember everything you tell them, and because they live in tightly-knit groups it's easier for them to pass on the message from one Hemitwid to another until the right person receives it. Quick and easy.

_"Find Prince Nuada!" _I beseeched one who was perched atop a discarded television set. _"Tell him that a big red man killed Wink! And tell him that I've—"_

"Simmer down, lady," Hellboy said, jerking my arm. I responded with a kick that, since my feet were bare and his were not, hurt me far worse than him. I could only hope that the Hemitwid would be able to finish the message and let Nuada know I'd been kidnapped; otherwise my chances of rescue were very, very slim.


	11. Them or Us?

Hellboy dragged me out of the Troll Market and into the meat locker which disguised the entrance. There he kept that stupid Right Hand of Doom wrapped around my arm while the talking suit interrogated Princess Nuala, who had acknowledged my presence with a glance but offered no word on my behalf.

"Vhy exactly vas zat troll after you?" the suit inquired.

"Why don't we ask Jinxed, here?" Hellboy suggested, hefting me up like a sock monkey again. "How 'bout it, Jinxie?"

All eyes turned to me, but I kept my mouth stubbornly shut. At least, I would've kept it shut if Hellboy hadn't started to apply more pressure to his grip. I had to either spill the beans or suffer a broken arm.

"That!" I blurted out, twisting in the stone vice and pointing to the crown piece on Princess Nuala's belt. "It was for that, now let go! Ow, ow, ow!"

The attention of the group slid away from me, and the Right Hand of Doom relaxed its grip, to my relief.

"To wage his war," Princess Nuala said, removing the crownpiece from her belt, "my brother needs this: the final piece to the Crown of Bethmoora. And this map to the location of the Golden Army." She gestured to the cylinder Abraham, the fish-man, held.

"Zhe Golden Army!" the talking suit gasped in wonderment. "Zhe harbingers of death! Zhe unstoppable tide!"

During this little outburst, Hellboy wandered aside for a moment and stared into space, looking a little weirded out. "Howdy Doody…" he murmured, and his grip slackened on me—though not enough for me to break away.

"Your Highness," the talking suit went on, "if you hand zhe crownpiece over to us—"

The Princess interrupted. "No. Where it goes,_ I_ go." She replaced the crownpiece on her belt. "My father died to uphold the truce between our worlds. You _must_ honor his noble intentions."

Seeing my chance, I raised my free hand and declared, "With Mister Wink gone now, I have nowhere else to go. I…hate to admit it, but the once-prince scares me a little. After what he did…after what I helped him do in the council chamber…I don't think I can trust him at all. Therefore, where Princess Nuala goes, _I_ go!" I somehow managed to cross my arms and nodded firmly.

To my surprise, the first one to speak up was Abraham, and he wasn't protesting! He became my instant favorite as he turned to the talking suit, who was obviously the leader of their little team, and implored, "These ladies are in dire need..."

"I take it you're vouching for _zhem_, Agent Sapien," the suit replied coldly.

"Most emphatically. Yes, I am." He and the Princess exchanged a long look, and all of a sudden I pictured the fish-man with a cherub's arrow wedged firmly in his gills. Ah, young love!

But the talking suit was intent on being a cold-hearted gasbag. "Even so," he said, almost sounding apologetic, "I am sorry, but we simply cannot assume such responsibility on our own!" He began to walk out of the meat locker, but soon realized that all four of us were refusing to follow him.

Hellboy did not seem happy, and his grip began to tighten on my arm again. I was definitely sensing some hostility between him and the suit. "The lady just lost her father," he said. "What more do you want?"

At this the suit stopped short. Turning on his heel, he thrust his fog-filled globe into Hellboy's face and began to rant. "You may not care, but zhere are procedures, rules, and little handbooks zhat—"

Hellboy leaned in close and exhaled a cloud of cigar smoke into the suit's glass face. "They're coming with us," he growled. "You got that, _Gas Bag_?"

"Wh-what! What did you call me!"

I smelled him before I saw him. The once-prince Nuada had arrived, and I suddenly found myself overcome by a guilty blush. I hoped to the nearest divinity that he hadn't heard what I'd said about not trusting him, because if he ever did get his hands on the third crownpiece I would be treated as a traitor. I would be, in short, _so damn screwed_.

But I didn't appear to be the object of interest in this confrontation. Instead of calling me to his side, the once-prince barked, "You! You will pay for what happened to my friend down there."

Hellboy immediately dropped his cigar, ground it under his boot and pulled his massive handgun out of its holster. "Yeah?" He replied cheekily, "Ya take checks?"

Nuada scoffed. "Demon…" Wait, was he talking to me or to Hellboy? I assumed the former and wasn't sure whether to cringe behind the motley crew or pretend to be elated. I decided to go with something subdued, something neutral so that I didn't offend whichever party was going to be winning the battle I knew was about to ensue.

"Prince Nuada," I said, taking a half-step forward so as not to appear too eager to be by his side again.

The once-prince ignored me. He'd been talking to Hellboy, apparently, because his full statement was, "Demon, born from a womb of shadows sent to destroy their world, and you still believe you belong?"

That was a little harsh, in my opinion. Hellboy didn't seem fazed, however. He retorted with, "Are we gonna talk all night? 'Cuz I'm really sleepy."

Nuada's lips twitched in the phantom of a smile and he reached into a black velvet pouch at his waist, drawing out from it…

I couldn't believe it!

"No, Brother, no!" Princess Nuala cried desperately, backing away.

It was a God's Cradle! It was in the shape of a gilded egg, but as soon as Nuada held it aloft it began to open with the tinkering sounds of clockwork. Within was a large green seed, filled with the essence of what I knew to be one of the last elemental gods in existence—I knew it was one of the last because I had _previously_ thought they were all extinct!

I began to renew my escape attempts, and finally Hellboy let me go. He probably figured that Nuada didn't exactly care for me, and I didn't exactly care for Nuada, so his plans to use me as leverage were pointless. I backpedaled until I hit the curb, where heavy traffic prevented me from going any further. I stared with a building sense of horror as Nuada took the seed, raised it slowly to his lips, and then my sensitive hearing caught his whispered order: _"Kill him."_

He tossed the seed forward and I scrambled after it. It had landed on the damp ground, but it needed to immerse itself in water to rekindle the life within its shell. "Oh no," I said through gritted teeth. "No, no, no!" The seed was headed for a storm drain.

"It's just a jumping bean!" Hellboy scoffed, blissfully ignorant of the terrible things that were about to occur.

"It's going for water!" Princess Nuala gasped. She turned to Abraham. "Hurry!"

I could've gotten that seed if the fish-man had just stayed out of my way! I almost had it within my grasp—telekinesis wouldn't work on the vessel of a god, unfortunately—when he came clumsily dancing after it, knocking me out of the way!

Sprawled out on the pavement, my heart began to hammer as I watched Abraham fall to his hands and knees, shouting helplessly after the seed as it plummeted down into the drain.

_"You idiot!" _I screeched, every alarm bell in my head going off at maximum speed and volume. The sound of my own panic was deafening. _ "You moron!_ _You stupid, stupid…"_ I failed to come up with a foul enough word, so I used the first one that came to mind. _"You stupid FISH!"_

Suddenly the entire block shook, and cars honked their horns as they momentarily swerved out of control. Every vehicle on the road hit its brakes and confused and angry people climbed out to experience the earthquake. A crowd began to approach Hellboy as he walked out into the middle of the street, but men in black suits ushered them away, telling them to stand back.

Never had I claimed to be a brave demon, and though my sense of self-preservation wasn't as fine-tuned as I'd liked it to be I knew it was time to run. I got to my feet and sprinted as fast as demonically possible from that city block before the god awoke.

I didn't get very far before the pavement in front of the Troll Market entrance heaved upward, cars flying everywhere, people panicking, broken glass pricking the pads of my feet. With a sonorous groan the god wove its grassy tendrils up, up, up until it was tall enough to reach out and bat the news team helicopters from the sky. Leaves and vines sprouted from the body, coating it like skin, and a bud formed around its glowing green energy center like a head. I didn't stay turned around long enough to see any more because it was a little difficult to run for my life when I was hitting a car every few feet.

The tide of people was beginning to follow my lead, which wasn't good because that meant that the god was coming our way. From somewhere nearby, I could hear a woman screaming for help—something about her baby—but I couldn't bring myself to halt in order to assist her. There didn't seem to be any point in it—we were probably all gonna die anyway.

I leapt onto the hood of a car and went on from there to avoid the onrush of screaming humans, bounding from vehicle to vehicle and not even trying to prevent my feet from denting them.

I heard what sounded like a car being turned to scrap metal, most likely by a giant leafy tendril, and a woman's voice screeched, "My baby! My baby's still in there!" I paused to catch my breath and to turn around and look as the god hurled a crumpled tin can that'd once been a minivan at a news helicopter that had strayed too close. The resulting fireball momentarily entranced me—we demons kind of have a thing for fire—but then the god picked up its roots and began to swagger down the street, bashing cars and people out of the way, tearing at the buildings on either side of it.

Hellboy was there. Hellboy, with a bundle of blankets tucked close to his chest and an even bigger gun than the last strapped to his back. He was jumping onto and over cars as he ran to avoid the extremely pissed-off deity, and that's when I realized that I should probably be doing the same thing.

"Agent Hellboy!" the familiar, German-accented voice screamed above the sounds of chaos. "Reach higher ground and shoot zhe weapon! Shoot zhe weapon!"

I looked down beside the truck I was perched on and saw the suit pointing at the god as though it'd been overlooked. I opened my mouth to tell him he should probably keep running, but then thought better of it. _Screw him; I hope he deflates like a whoopee-cushion._

The god raised a tendril and pancaked the front end of a car Hellboy had been clambering onto, sending him flying through the air as though he'd been launched from a catapult. He rose towards the night sky like some kind of demon in denial of the loss of its wings, and just as gravity began to assert its authority he switched the giggling bundle of blankets to his stone arm and yanked on an overhanging power line. Sparks flew as he sailed across the street, landing upon a neon HOTEL sign.

"What the hell is he doing?" I asked nobody in particular.

"I'm sure _ve_ know just as much as _he_," the gasbag replied, still standing beside my truck. He shook his globe exasperatedly.

Hellboy crouched on the sign and carefully transferred the blankets—which, from the cheerful burbling they emitted, belonged to an extremely well-tempered baby—into the care of his scarlet tail. Above everything I heard him say, "Your first piece of tail, kid…" and I couldn't help but grin.

Seeing as the god seemed more interested on killing the Infernal Prince than rampaging through the city, I deemed it safe enough to remain crouched on the cab of my truck and watching who would win. _A god versus a rebellious demon—now where have I heard that story before?_

Hellboy began to scale the sign letter-by-letter as the god reduced it to HOTE, HOT, and finally just a single H clinging to the side of the building. The other letters were discarded in the intersection below, almost too close for comfort, but still I decided to remain.

"You must shoot it in zhe energy ganglion!" the suit shouted upwards. Hellboy made a face that clearly conveyed his doubt that 'ganglion' was a word, and even if it was it probably wouldn't _kill_ the god to shoot it right in the—

"The energy ganglion!" Gasbag repeated.

"The head!" I yelled at him, intent on having a bit of fun egging this fight on. "Shoot it in the head!"

Hellboy looked from me to the suit and opened his mouth to say something, but the neon H he was standing on was having a bit of trouble hanging onto its building, and one of its two supports came unbolted from the brick. Hellboy cried out and windmilled his arms to keep his balance, the baby giggling behind him at the rocking motion. Suddenly remembering the baby, he transferred it back into his arms just as the god let out a guttural roar and swatted at him, only to miss as he jumped over the tendril and landed awkwardly but unscathed.

He looked from the baby to the god and back again, then turned to the bundle of blankets and said, "Ya gotta trust me little buddy, okay?" The baby didn't make a peep of protest as the Infernal Prince flung him toward the starless sky, shrugged the gun off of his back and into his grasp, readied it, and then caught the plummeting bundle in his stone hand without a moment to spare.

"Damn," was all I could muster in response.

Perhaps the end of its gravity-defying fun had upset it, or maybe it had realized that this bright red, gun-toting man was not its mommy, but the baby began to whimper and cry, squirming in the Right Hand of Doom. Hellboy glared at the god and said sternly, "You woke up the baby."

He pointed his weapon at the approaching god and I winced at the sound it made. Gigantic bullets appeared out of a blinding muzzle flash and struck the god in the chest, causing it to roar in agony and fall back against a building. Its thick green blood spattered the pavement, turning it to lush moss and grass on contact. It was its flowing blood which began to bind it to the building it leaned upon, vines and lichens sprouting from its body and pooling onto the concrete, turning it soft and green.

Though I much prefer seeing things burn than seeing them grow, I couldn't help but think that it was kind of a cool effect.

People took the god's incapacitation as an opportunity to escape from behind cars or wherever they'd been hiding from the swinging tendrils. The god yanked at the vines tethering it to the building, but the more it struggled the more it bled, and the more it bled the more vines sprouted to bind it.

The suit craned its metal neck upwards and ordered, "Agent Hellboy! Take zhe shot! Right now! Take it!" Fog hissed from a couple of valves beneath his globe, and I wondered if that meant he had the talking suit equivalent of high blood pressure. I looked up to see what the Infernal Prince would do, if he chose to preserve the lives of humans rather than spare the life of one of his own, an ancient creature of magick.

"Zat's an order!" the suit continued to blather even as Hellboy raised his gun, aiming for the god's head. "Take zhe shot, zat's an order, Agent Hellboy!"

But rather than pull the trigger, the Prince was hesitating. The god let out a piteous moan and its giant head lolled on its shoulders. It lifted a tendril as if to take a swipe but then lowered it and made a groaning sigh.

"Demon."

The voice of the once-prince made me start, and in my momentary panic I couldn't pinpoint Nuada's location. But then I spotted Hellboy, looking up at a figure perched on the roof of his building. A spotlight slid across the pale countenance of the king-killer as he gestured towards the god and asked ironically, "What are you waiting for? This is what you wanted, isn't it?" Hellboy did not point his gun at the once-prince—instead, he lowered it and listened.

"Look at it—the last of its kind," the once-prince told him, confirming my own suspicions. The god began to renew its struggles against its bonds, and this time managed to make some progress. It let out a monstrous roar as it strained toward Hellboy and Nuada. "Like you and I, if you destroy it, the world will never see its life again." Shoots and vines were snapping, chunks of brick tumbling to the pavement, and I wondered if Nuada was merely distracting Hellboy until the god freed itself.

"You have more in common with _us_ than with them," Nuada urged, surprising me by including me in his gesture meant for 'us'. "You could be a king!"

The suit was screaming orders again, but it was just an irritating background noise that I didn't care to decipher. The thought of Hell on Earth was certainly an appealing one, at least to me, and I was straining to hear what the Infernal Prince might say next.

"If you cannot command," the once-prince pointed out, glancing down at the suit, "then you must obey."

Hellboy shook his head, brow furrowed in thought. "Damn," was all he said. It was all he had time to say, anyway, for the H's final support began to fail under his weight, and as he stumbled the god lunged for him and roared like a beast sensing weakness in its prey. Its limbs struggled to heave its body forward and a single tendril rose to strike Hellboy from the face of the Earth, and he fired a single shot into its open maw.

The god's head popped like a grape, spilling green juice everywhere, even on me. My skin tingled as moss burst into life upon it, pale green vines draping themselves around my arms like bangles. Flowers sprouted up and down my body, and I couldn't help but grin at the feeling of being covered in new, god-given life. It was ironic, yes, but it was really a nice feeling.

Blood dribbled onto the sidewalk and grass flooded the intersection, saplings sprouted beside traffic lights, and the broken metal bodies of cars were transformed into flower patches. The god's body became encased in a thick blanket of soft green, and it truly was something to marvel at.

The humans who'd stayed, like me, to watch the battle began to creep from their hiding places, staring at the forest clearing in the middle of Brooklyn. A few of them took pictures, and I climbed down from my truck to avoid being caught in the flash of a camera.

We all watched as the casing of the god's head revealed itself to be a collection of petals, which unfurled and spilled billions of little seedlings into the night air like snowflakes. The impossibly gigantic flower filled the streets with a sweet, clean scent—one that chased away the stink of car exhaust and garbage dumpsters.

I stooped to run my fingers over a collection of ferns that'd gathered at my feet, and then realized that they were actually growing _on_ my feet. It was impossible to name the reason why I didn't simply slough off my leafy second skin, but I did find myself walking gingerly so as not to disturb my new covering.

The suit, Abraham, Princess Nuala, and a dark-haired woman I assumed was also part of their team were the only ones beside me who walked upon the god's blood. They took a moment to look at me with similarly odd expressions—though I did have to make one up for the suit—and all I could do in response was grin my devilish grin, spread my arms and state, "This is amazing. I wonder if _I'll_ turn into anything this cool when I die." I didn't plan on dying soon, but I didn't harbor any delusions that I was going to live forever—because forever is a very, very long time.

"It's…beautiful," Abraham agreed. Beside him, Princess Nuala reached towards me and touched a fluffy white seedling that had alighted on my shoulder. It allowed her fingertips to gently kiss it before floating off in search of a more permanent resting place. Its brethren floated all around us, filling the sky with what could be imagined to be stars.

I decided it was time to shed my green pelt and began to carefully disengage the grips of the various floras coating me. It peeled off in strips that, when dropped back to the ground, merely took root there instead as though nothing had happened. I looked up above to see what Nuada was making of all of this, only to find Hellboy gazing at the spot the once-prince had once occupied.

This beautiful peace didn't last long, however. It was broken by the sound of police sirens, and blue-and-red lights flashing atop police cars. I planted myself with the suit's team firmly in place between me and the authorities on the off-chance an officer recognized me from my time-to-time escapades in the human world. No, I'd never actually been arrested, but I had been the quarry of a few pursuits now and again.

Cops swarmed the green, forming a barricade that blocked the citizens from getting through to touch the god's corpse or take samples of the foreign plant life. Press shot photos like crazy and, as Hellboy dropped down from the flickering neon H, voices began to rise in anger.

"Hey, give the baby back!" I heard a man shout, and the mob seemed to agree with him. As he strode past the cops a woman forced her way through the barricade, face tear-stained and voice hysterical. She screeched and ran at Hellboy, snatching the sleeping baby from his arms with a cry of, "What've you done to my baby!"

"The baby's fine," he replied with an attempt at a smile, but she hurried off without listening to a word. I whipped my head around and glared at the mob as she disappeared into it, though I really shouldn't have been surprised. If there were two things humanity was really, really good at, they were panicking uncontrollably and fighting pointlessly. Mostly the latter—if it wasn't true, then how would you explain all those wars, hm?

"Freak!" a man snarled, brandishing a baseball bat.

"Kidnapper!"

"Baby-snatcher!"

Hellboy looked around in confusion and started forward towards the grim-faced police. I came up beside him and said helpfully, "The baby's fine, or couldn't you tell? Who else do you know that can rock a kid to sleep while shooting a rampaging elemental in the head, huh? He'll be peachy—your human infants don't even start forming memories until they're—"

"Don't move!" a cop shouted, aiming his pistol at us. "Hands in the air!"

I could feel my glamour beginning to slip out of anger and took a bold couple of steps forward, raising my hand to display my claws, but before I could start defending us Hellboy grabbed me by the collar and yanked me back. His right hand was in the air in a harmless gesture, but a stupid policeman barked, "He's got a weapon in his hand!"

The dark-haired woman looked at him like he'd just said the most moronic thing humanly possible and called out, "That _is_ his hand!" She walked past the cops and shielded Hellboy with her own body as a look of bitter realization spread across his face. He released me and lowered his hands, and a cop ordered, "Miss! Stay away from him, for your own safety!"

"He was trying to help, don't you see!" she shouted back at him, pale face flushed in anger. "He was just trying to help!"

"You morons, he saved your _lives!_ Don't you get it? He just took down a _god_ for you thankless, gutless, brainless—"

I found the muzzle of a gun pointed my way, and soon realized why. I'd gotten a little too heated during my speech, and my glamour was pretty much entirely gone, basically leaving me a seething scarlet beastie. Aw, what did I care! Let them see me, I decided. It's about time anyhow, and it feels good to not have to have my tail curled up in my pants leg anymore.

The girl looked at me strangely for a moment before crying out, "That's all we do, that's all we've done all these years! We just try to help you! _You!_"

"You're just a freak!" someone roared in response, and a stone pelted Hellboy in the face before he had time to move. It left only a small cut on his cheek, but from the look in his eyes it stung more than just physical pain.

I thrashed my tail and looked for the stone-thrower, but whoever it was must've been smart enough to duck back into the crowd. "You're the freaks!" was my clever retort. "Who in the hell do you think you are!"

The woman glared in the same direction as me and took a deep breath, her skin beginning to glow. Within moments flames had flared to life over her entire body, heating the cross around her neck until it turned red-hot, but oddly enough not burning her clothes. "Pyrokinesis," I remarked, flashing a fanged smirk. "Nice. Gonna toast 'em or what?"

The cops had lowered their guns, and the mob had fallen relatively silent. Everyone looked on in horror, probably wondering why the woman wasn't screaming in agony or why the stench of burning flesh didn't fill the air, but all I could smell was fear. Human fear.

There was nothing for me to worry about if she decided to go nuclear—I was fire-proof, and so was the Prince. I waited eagerly for something to happen, but all there was was a sizzling noise as the Right Hand of Doom rested gently on the flaming woman's shoulder. "Liz," he said quietly, looking at the terror-filled faces before him, "let's go home."

She took another couple of deep breaths before fizzling out, the cross still glowing with heat around her throat, and followed him through the mob, which parted before them. The police made way for the suit, Abraham and the Princess, and I trailed along behind them, not really knowing what else to do. As I walked among them I wanted so, _so_ badly to claw just one or two of the humans, or even just gnash my teeth at them, but I figured that the last thing we needed was a riot on our hands.

As we neared a van parked just a little ways away from the god's corpse I thought about my usage of 'we'. Was I really a part of this little gang of misfits now? Or was I technically still on once-prince Nuada's side? Was I a guest, like the Princess, or a prisoner? Where lay the line between 'us' and 'them'?

A/N

Haven't touched this in a while, huh? The person you can thank for the existence of this chapter is OceanFire9, who left me the most lovely review today—well, considering the fact that it's 1:30AM here I'd say they left the review _yesterday_.

Ahem, so there you have it, the forest god scene on display. As always, reviews are encouraged. Particular points of interest include Jinx's participation in this chapter—I don't feel like she did a lot, but I also feel like there wasn't an awful lot for her _to_ do.

Also, I feel like I'm not making her demonic enough. It's okay that she likes having god blood on her, right?

Anyway, I don't suppose next chapter will be jumping _straight_ into BPRD HQ. After all, we need Manning's reaction after learning _another_ demon's gonna be waltzing around his organization.

Question for consideration: Is Jinx a guest or a captive? Seriously, because I haven't the foggiest at this point.

Review!


	12. Trouble Agent

All of this worrying was really starting to get to me. As a demon, I generally liked to make a point of doing whatever I pleased whenever I pleased, but lately that lifestyle had only proved itself to be a shovel that steadily added onto the big, stinking pile I'd wandered into around the same time the once-prince showed up. The fact that the moment we reached the team's van several men in dark suits attempted to wrestle me into handcuffs only made everything better.

"Let go of me!" I screeched, and immediately found myself in a headlock. I felt someone come up beside me, saw the silver flash of the cuffs and with a quick whip of my tail a grown man was kneeling on the concrete clutching his family jewels. "Ha!" I laughed and then scowled up at the guy holding me. "Lemme go or you'll never have kids, man—I mean it!"

"Don't make me tase you."

"…Fair enough." If I lost consciousness I'd miss all the fun, so for the moment I stopped trying to bite the man's arm off, and I allowed a pair of handcuffs to be clenched around my wrists. The man released me from the headlock but kept a firm grip on my elbow and a wary eye on my tail. A few of his buddies came over and scraped the first guy off the concrete.

The back of the van opened then, revealing a mobile headquarters filled with monitors, control panels and all manner of shiny blinking buttons. A balding, harried-looking man was standing there, mouth agape. "What was all that?" he demanded, waving his hands vaguely towards the commotion around the green. "What? Listen, I know we're 'out' and all, but we could still just use a _little_ bit of discretion! Isn't that right, Doctor Krauss?"

He looked at the suit, Krauss, as though searching for some sign of reassurance. Krauss lifted a hand to his globe as though weary of it all and replied, "Forgive me, Agent Manning, but it vas unavoidable. I vill explain it to you on our vay back to Headquarters, but for now I vill make zhe introductions." He dipped his globe towards the Princess and said, "Zis is Princess Nuala…whom ve vill be granting asylum to for a short vile."

Manning switched his attention to the Princess and didn't seem quite sure what to make of her. She gave him a small curtsey and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Agent Manning." He looked stupefied for a moment before responding with a clumsy bow and a mumbling, "The pleasure's all mine—uh, Princess."

Krauss nodded and Abraham escorted Princess Nuala into the vehicle, where Liz and Hellboy were already waiting. Then he turned to me, patiently waiting in the grip of a gorilla in a suit, and my eyes flashed dangerously. "Oh," I cooed, sweet as motor oil, "is it _my_ turn already?"

"And zis," the suit said with some disdain, "is an accomplice of zhe Prince, who released zhe beast back zhere."

"It was an Elemental, you moron…" I grumbled, rolling my eyes.

"I see," Manning replied, nodding as though he knew exactly what was going on. "So, uh, what are we going to do with her? I mean, what do _you_ think we should do with her, Doctor Krauss? What's your opinion?"

I looked between the two of them and inquired, "Is it possible for his nose to go any farther up your ass, Doctor Krauss? Or whatever you've got in that suit. An exhaust vent, maybe?"

Manning blinked at me in surprise, as though he hadn't expected me to be quite so articulate, and I could just imagine the superior look upon the suit's nonexistent face as he remarked in German, _"Charmant_ . You vill be coming vis us, and you vill be telling us everysing zhat you know about zhe Prince's plans for zhe Golden Army."

"'Golden Army'?" Manning echoed, and Krauss shushed him with a wave. I didn't much like the thought of being their prisoner, even if they did make a cute couple. All I wanted was to see this adventure through to the end—and not from behind the bars of a cell. It was time to get clever.

"Okay," I said, slumping my shoulders and covering myself in glamour again. Being the picture of defeat wasn't exactly my shtick, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try. "I tell you what, guys…you got it all _wrong_."

"And vhat exactly do you mean by zhat?"

I looked around furtively as though to make sure the once-prince wasn't eavesdropping on us, then shrugged at the suit and told him, "I'm a, uh…a double-agent, see? I heard the once-prince—er, I mean Prince Nuada—was gonna try and awaken the Golden Army, and I got in on it, see? I was gonna wait until he let his guard down, snatch the crown pieces away from him and, I dunno, bury them or something."

Their silence was skeptical.

"I would've figured it out!" I insisted, intent on not letting this become another steaming shovel full in my face.

"Zhen vhy vere you hunting zhe Princess?" Krauss demanded, sounding as though he had me caught.

I blew a strand of hair out of my face. Rolling my eyes again I replied, "Well _duh_, Agent Krauss, I had to _protect_ her! Why do you think I didn't help the troll turn Big Red over there into a puddle of _El Diablo_? I had to _look_ like I was on their side, but let the Princess escape at the same time!"

I swallowed a smirk and instead gave them an earnest look, a look that said, _Hey, I'm a demonic creature that's destined to aid in the destruction of humanity eventually—but for now can't we all just get along?_

They looked at each other and from inside the van Hellboy called, "Is this gonna take all day? Throw her in the truck and let's go, already!"

Krauss turned to me and nodded briskly. "Very vell," he said. "You too shall be granted asylum, but you vill be vatched very closely, vith an armed escort at all times."

"What!" I cried before I could stop myself. Manning tried to stare me down with his watery little eyes, but faltered after a couple seconds, and Krauss titled his globe. Stuttering, my gaze fell upon Princess Nuala as she peered curiously from the back of the van, and inspiration struck. "Uh, I mean, I want to be with the Princess. I risked my hide trying to keep her and the crown piece safe, and, not that I don't trust your suits or anything, but I'd feel better if I could keep an eye on her myself."

Not grinning like a moron at my own excellence was, in my opinion, one of my most amazing feats of the evening. All I could do was curl my tail in pleasure, and what happened next had it curling itself into knots.

"Maybe…maybe that would be a good idea," Manning said. He glanced at Krauss as though waiting for the green light to go on, and when the suit didn't backhand him he added, "I mean, if the Princess and, uh…this…"

"Jinx," I helped.

"Yes, thank you—if the Princess and Jinx were kept _together_ then we could preserve the man power by providing them with a smaller, _combined _escort."

Krauss considered this before nodding briskly. "Very vell zhen. Agents Sapien, Hellboy and Sherman vill be keeping a close eye on zhe both of you until ve reach Headquarters. Zhere vill be many agents zhere to prevent any…_mischief_." The way he stressed the last word was a less than subtle warning to me, and then he nodded towards the van before strolling off with Manning not far behind.

The suit I'd knocked where the sun don't shine had finally recovered, and so he took the honor of yanking me up the ramp into the van, in spite of my protests and claims of police brutality. He uncuffed my hands and deposited me into my very own swivel chair, and just when I was about to thank him he cuffed my wrist to the arm of the chair. As he exited I shouted, "Yeah, have fun explaining to your wife where all that bruising and swelling came from!"

He slammed the doors in my face. I imagined he would sit up front with Manning and Krauss, swapping manly tales about how they had bravely arrested little girls back when they were mall security guards.

The vehicle roared to life and I looked around at everyone. Liz had her arms around Hellboy and a sad look on her face, while Hellboy himself had his chin resting on her head and his eyes closed. The cut on his cheek was still oozing blood.

Abraham was explaining the uses for the pieces of equipment surrounding us to the Princess, who nodded and smiled politely, but I don't think she understood any more than I did. Eventually the conversation dwindled down to silence, filled only by the gently blipping of a radar somewhere in the corner. I stayed seated in my swivel chair like a good little demon, then after a while I held up the cuffs that'd been binding me and asked, "Er, where should I put these?"

Liz lifted her head from its place on Hellboy's chest and asked, "How'd you get those off?"

I placed the handcuffs in the air in front of me and removed my hand. They stuck there, suspended by my power. "Telekinesis," I replied. "Nothing too extraordinary, but helpful enough in a pinch."

She nodded and lay her head back down. I looked around for another source of conversation, tired with this quiet. I sent the handcuffs spinning like helicopter blades and they whizzed over to a drawer, pulled it open and settled in.

"That is an interesting ability you have," Abraham remarked, but then said no more.

"Did you mean what you told them?" Princess Nuala asked me suddenly, golden eyes probing. "Did you really mean to protect me the entire time?"

Gulp. Lying to a kiss-ass and a talking whoopee cushion was one thing, but lying to Princess of Bethmoora…

I shrugged. "Sure. I mean, I was kind of in it for the fun, you know? Big adventure, like in the movies; but then people started dying, and suddenly it wasn't really so much fun anymore…I'm sorry about your father, by the way. If I'd known what he was going to do…" I trailed off. Would I really have stopped Nuada? Even if it meant he'd slaughter me?

"Thank you," she murmured, dipping her head.

I looked away from her grief-stricken face and spun around in my chair, pretending to have a good time but really feeling sick to my stomach. "When are we gonna get there?" I asked, keeping my mouth busy to distract me from my thoughts.

"Quite soon, actually," Abraham said.

I looked around for a window to press my face against, but finding none I was forced to curl up in my chair and wait out the ride. I didn't remember falling asleep, but suddenly there was drool on my chin, the van had stopped its rumbling and everyone was starting to get up from their seats.

"We're here," Abraham said, extending his hand to the Princess to help her up. "This is our home."

I unhinged my jaw in an incredible yawn and tried to scrub the sleep from my face. "Where exactly is 'here'?" I asked blearily. Still stupid from my little nap, I added, "Is it Area Fifty-One?"

Hellboy snorted as he opened the doors in the back of the van, and he and Liz walked out into an enormous hanger (filled with trucks, planes, jets, and loads of other amazing vehicles I was already itching to take for a joyride or two) with their arms still around each other. _That whole thing with the angry mob must've really gotten to them, _I thought. _Who knew the Infernal Prince would be so sensitive?_

Well, the bright side was the Prince and his girlfriend were too busy moping to keep a close eye on me like Agent Gasbag ordered. All I had to do now was slip away when the fish man wasn't looking—easy enough, as he was busy making goo-goo eyes at the Princess—and then I could go exploring. The super secret base of the BYOB or whatever had to be teeming with all sorts of interesting—

"I must advise you not to wander," Abraham said, turning back to look at me. "If you're discovered by yourself or in a restricted area, Agent Krauss is liable to have you placed in a holding cell."

I stared at him, wondering how devious I'd appeared for him to be chastising me already. "What are you," I grumbled, "some kind of mind-reader?"

"Actually, yes," he replied without missing a beat. He dipped his head in the direction of a hallway leading out of the hangar and offered the Princess his arm. "This way, please."

_What an amphibious gentleman, _I found myself thinking as I tagged along. _Or is he a gentlemanly amphibian?_

I was quickly distracted by the gleaming, brightly lit interior of Freak HQ. It was all so…shiny. Oh, if there was anything a little demon like me fancied, it was shiny things. I couldn't wait to ditch the fish and—

"_This_ way, please," Abraham repeated, jerking me from my scheming thoughts.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming. Just…making sure the perimeter's secure." I spouted the first agent-y thing that came to mind. Agent Sapien could've called me on it, but humored me instead.

"I assure you, our Headquarters is a fortress. We're relatively secluded with a convincing front; armed guards complete with K9 units patrol the outer perimeter, which is also under 24-hour video surveillance. There are numerous, armed, _highly_ trained agents and even more electronic security between any would-be invaders and the heart of our operation—not to mention the fact that Agents Hellboy and Sherman, as well as myself, have been charged with watching over the two of you. This is the safest place you could possibly be."

At that I wondered. Nuada had orchestrated the massacre of an entire building full of humans for a single piece of the crown. He had murdered the King of Bethmoora, his own father, for the second piece. Something nagged at the back of my mind, a single black thought that kept me silent as Abraham led me and the Princess to the respective quarters to which we'd been assigned.

_The once-prince did all that for this crown, to wake the indestructible army of gold and bring the world of man to its knees. Since the beginning of time he has demanded blood for blood—human heads to pay for his own slaughtered warriors. What if the 'safest place we could possibly be' isn't nearly safe enough?_

I gulped and, for the first time ever, hoped that things didn't end in blood and fire.

A/N

Much time has passed since the last episode of Jinx's escapades. I've had the first half of this chapter sitting in my computer for pretty much the entire duration of the aforementioned time, and decided at 10:30PM on a Sunday evening to finish it.

I feel like the end of this chapter is very dramatic, but I wanted to end with some foreshadowing of Nuada's arrival and was having trouble leading into it. What do you guys think, eh? I try hard to keep everyone In Character when not drawing directly from the film, but helpful critiques shall always be welcomed with an absurd amount of enthusiasm.

I believe next chapter will include some Awkward Flirtation starring Abe Sapien, Red and Blue Drunken Sing-Along, and Intoxicated Scarlet Monkey vs. That Slippery Bastard with special guest, Prince Nuada himself!

Ohhoho, whose side will Jinks choose in the end? Will it be her senses of honor, courage and morality that win out over her sense of self preservation? We may know who prevails in the end, but our dear Jinks does not, and the choice she makes could be her salvation or her downfall…

R&R to give me your thoughts on the subject.


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